Hang on
by infamous tine
Summary: On a guided tour through the cellars of the Paris Opera House, Carla attracts the attention of someone who she believed not to exist or at least to be dead for some time... (Hopefully) a new perspective on PotO. -COMPLETED-
1. Creeping Life

Re-reading never ends... thanks to my beta reader, you know I love you, don't you?

Enjoy:)

**Chapter One – Creeping Life **

**"Now**, where've you been?" Carla asks when Leah enters the small flat and throws her jacket on the floor right under the coat rack.

Leah smiles innocently.

"I've arranged our tour for tomorrow."

"Another tour?" Carla groans "We live here now, Leah, we go to university here! We don't have to hurry through the city like we had only a week to see it."

"Oh, but Carla, this is Paris! Paris!" Leah stretches the 'a' like a chewing gum. "I can't wait to see it all!"

"But I don't want to hurry around all the time. Give me some time to start feeling at home here! We haven't even packed out all our stuff. Can't we first really arrive here?"

"You mean, _sit_ here." Leah grins. "No, trust me, it'll be fun. And relaxing."

"I don't believe you."

"It will be a guided tour. I have no influence on how much will be told and shown and how far you'll have to walk, but as there will be a group of schoolkids with us, it's not all gonna be so exerting."

"Schoolkids?" Carla coughs. "It'll be chaos, dear, chaos."

"Yeees, and we can do what we want and cross barriers and touch statues and stuff and no one will notice."

"Freak."

"Thanks. Now, aren't you curious where the tour will be?"

Carla gives a deep sigh.

"I don't know. Will I be able to sleep when I know what awaits me tomorrow?"

"Don't be so negative. And now guess."

"It will be a building."

"That's good." Leah grins. "Go on."

"A building... it's a huge one, right?"

"Yes."

"It's on the Axis."

"Nope."

Carla sighs again.

"You get all horny when you think of it."

"You bet I do!"

"I should have known you wouldn't spare me."

"We'll see the cellars! The underground lake! Waaah!" Leah screams and begins to run around in a circle. "Dundundundundunduuuun..."

"Someone give her some drugs." Carla comments sarcastically.

"No, don't." Leah lets herself fall onto her bed. "I swear I'll be silent and I won't be annoying, I won't be phan-y, I swear it!"

"You can't help being phan-y, darling. You'll be an utter shame and correct the guide because you know more about the Opera then him. You'll be all nerdy. And I can't stop wondering what's wrong with me that I still count you as my best friend in the world."

"Perhaps it's the lack of alternatives." Leah sticks out her tongue. "Now, the tour will last approximately four hours, but I will carry all the chocolate you'll need."

"Yeah. Be my Samweis Gamdschie. Carry it and purchase it." Carla gives a threatening look. "Bribe me, c'mon, bribeme with chocolate so that I don't kill you while you sleep in order to spare me having to climb thousands of stairs with school gnomes all around."

"A bribe. With hazelnuts."

"Ok. You'll live and I'll come with you. But if you ask to see Christine's mirror I will punjab you."

"Anti phan using phan phrases. Sweet."

"You intoxicated me. Swear you won't sing."

Leah bangs her fist on her sternum.

"Cross my heart and hope to die."

"And now for something completely different. I am hungry and our cooker isn't installed yet. What about some pizza?"

"No. French ice cream good, french pizza evil. I want some decent baguette."

"Good." Carla pats her stomach and twists her face into what she calls her Feed-weird-Lord-Nero-look. "You go and fetch. Me has ideal weight, you could lose a kilo or two to body motion."

"Because all the chocolate you eat ist beamed directly from your guts onto my hips."

"Yeah. I love it. I eat, you grow fat. How do they say? You complete me, Leah dear."

"Huh." Leah turns her face to an imaginative audience "And this thing calls me a freak."

**Leah **and Carla arrive at the Opera House half an hour before the tour is about to start.

"Man, I didn't think it would be that huge!"

"I told you. Susan Kay wasn't lying."

"Indeed."

"And all the statues are half naked, just like in the movie."

"Had a taste for sexy things this Garnier guy, didn't he?" Carla grins.

"Yeah, Erik was too much a decent guy to display naked women..."

"Mixing fact and fiction again, dearest."

"No, I'm not!" Leah touches the handrail of the Grand Escalier as if it were a holy relic. "You know what Leroux wrote." she whispers. "It all really happened."

"Leroux lied. _Some_ things really happened."

"And how did they come to happen if not because of Erik?"

"Phreak." is all Carla chooses to answer.

"Thanks." Leah makes an ironical little bow "Now let's go to the mirrored chamber under the stairs..."

**"Now,** I want you to stay close together. The catacombs are a real labyrinth and I don't want anyone to get lost here." The guard - a tiny woman - tries in vain to make herself heard over the shouting and giggling of the schoolchildren. These have turned out to be not much younger than Leah and Carla, but still as loud as a kindergarten; and as soon as her command is spoken, Leah continues her endless questions about the catacombs.

In the meantime, Carla, leaving some meters of silent space between herself and the group, lets her eyes wander over old walls, through shadows, breathing the damp air of the underground. She suddenly understands how Leroux got the idea of a ghost, a genius, a disfigured, tortured man living down here. If she would ever have the misfortune to get depressed, she would wish herself back here, of that she is certain.

Endless stairs, corridors, shadows. She tries to lose herself to the atmosphere and listens to Beethoven's "Monlight Sonata", played by her memory, until she doesn't hear the guide and the kids anymore.

'Is that why some people experiment with drugs?' Carla silently asks herself. 'To open up to something from the outside and let it change you deeply for some time?'

Her hand caresses the stonewall on her left. She'll have to thank Leah for this - she smiles - trip and excuse for her rudeness yesterday, although she knows that Leah understood her bad mood and isn't hurt.

Suddenly, behind a metal railing, the lake lies before her. The air is cold and the smell of moss and mud seems to permeate everything. The surface is absolutely black, but where small neon lamps light the passage, silvery circles and ellipses lie on it like moonlight, lovely, rippled and torn and cut as the kids start to throw little stones into the water - wherever they found these...

"And other people need diamonds to impress them." Carla mumbles softly.

After a while the group moves on, attempting to leave the lake area through a corridor around the corner. A draft starts when the guide opens the door, and when Carla passes through it, her neckerchief is sent flying into the lake.

"Darn!" She growls angrily "I'll be right back, ok, tell the guide to wait for me at the next turn-off." she calls after a random kid who gives no sign that he has heard her.

"Darn stupid draft, that was my favourite neckerchief and it was expensive and all!" she scolds while climbing over the railing to fish the cloth out of the water.

Suddenly the lights are turned off.

Shocked, Carla stiffens. That causes her to lose her footing and tumble with a big splash into the lake. Immediately, she struggles upwards through the cold, absolute blackness, back to where the surface must be, but her clothes are already soaked with water and pull her deeper.

Then there are arms, getting a hold on her, pulling her through the water. For a moment, Carla relaxes, groping for her rescuer's body to help him carry her, but then she realizes that her journey still goes downward.

It's panic then.

The last thing she knows before she loses consciousness is that her helpless struggling hands strike something that feels like a face with no nose.


	2. Dreaming

Wuh, I got a review! Thanks for that:)

Here comes the second chapter:

**Chapter Two – Dreaming**

**When** Carla awakes again, she can't move. Expecting to find herself bound, she opens her eyes. But what keeps her from moving is only a blanket, wound tightly around her. Under it she still wears her wet clothes, but she isn't cold. Hastily she checks the room where she is situated, but she seems to be alone.

"Now that darn blanket..." she mumbles, struggling to free her arms. When it doesn't work, she starts to roll over the bed, what results in her falling to the floor, but being rid of her restraints as well.

Insecure of what to do or even think, she sits down on the bed again and pulls the blanket over her shoulders. Looking around she notices a black bath robe hanging on the door of a huge wardrobe. A sheet of paper is attached to the robe.

Carla walks over to read it.

Bloodred letters that look like a child had smeared them because someone forced it to.

'I'll do you no harm. Change into the gown. Wash you clothes in the bathroom. They can dry at the fireplace. -E.'

"Surreal." Carla mumbles. "This letter is absolutely surreal. Surely you're dreaming all this. It's the night before the Opera and you're dreaming all this!"

"Damned be Leah and her phantomania. I'll break her some bones when I wake up, I swear it!" she growls while she rinses the dirty lake water out of her clothes. "Damned be my imaginative mind." Suddenly she remembers striking a noseless face. "And if _that's_ not the absolute proof that you are dreaming, I don't know what is! Carla and the Phantom. Leah will die of envy when you tell her this dream tomorrow."

When her clothes are clean again, she leaves the bathroom, heading for what appears to be the outer door of the bedroom. Then she hesitates.

"This dream is going on for quite some time. You should wake up now, Carla. I bet your alarm clock will ring in five seconds. Or you need to go to the toilet... Wake up... Wake up!" She pinches her arm a few times until red spots appear on her skin, but the scenery before her eyes still doesn't change into the well known hotel room.

"Then I've fallen into a coma, have I not? They've made quite some movies and series and all where they explain surreal things with the main charakter being comatose... I've fallen into the lake, lost consciousness, and now I'm lying in a hospital, connected to loads of infusions and monitors, and in my throat is a slit where they pump me up like an airbed because I can't breathe on my own... Anyone hear me? Don't transplant my organs yet!" She stops and lets herself fall onto the floor, cursing a little. "This is all too surreal. I can't cope with it... Someone take me out of here!" But none has the power or is willing to spare her from what is to come.

"Ok." she mumbles after a while. "This is no dream and surely it is no coma, too. But don't freak out. Some nice guy with an E has saved you from drowning, that's all. He can't write well and has a house with a room without windows. That's not surreal, that's just... a little strange, you now... Pick up your clothes and leave this room. Get them to dry, get something to eat and then get someone to bring you back to your cozy hotel chamber with your nice, harmless phreak friend Leah." Having said that as calm as possible, she struggles up, and leaves the room with all the determination she can find, before she can change her mind and lose herself to a fit of mindless panic.

**Behind** the door lies a dark corridor. It takes some seconds for Carla's eyes to adjust to the darkness, but finally she can percept a shimmer of light coming out of an open door some yards from where she stands.

With a busy expression on her face she walks towards that door, forcing up some anger about the neckerchief that she now realizes is missing.

But on the threshold she stops, dumbstruck.

There is a huge armchair in front of a fireplace. And in that chair sits a man who now turns his head slowly into her direction, so that she can observe the light of the fire playing over the anatomy of the smooth, white mask that covers his whole face.

Her first impulse is to think something condescending about freaks who have delusions about being fictional characters. But then the power of the man's presence hits her like a shock wave and there is no more room for doubts about his identity.

Still, somehow, Carla's senses refuse to accept that rude shift of fact and fiction.

"Oh come on, you're kidding, right?" she whimpers, throwing her wet clothes to the floor.

When Erik doesn't answer, she slams her fist against the doorframe.

"Now forgive me for I'm about to run a few rounds around this room screaming and then roast my head in that darn fireplace or run on till I find the kitchen and stab myself with the first knife I can get my hands on!"

Within a second, Erik stands in front of of her and grabs her upper arms to shake her roughly.

"Don't!" he commands.

"Don't?" Carla retorts. "What would be an appropriate rection then, hah? What do other down-to-earth, reasonable girls do when they find themselfs in the company of someone they have known to be fiction? I don't believe in you!"

"Regarding the evidence that is clinging to your arms this is the most stupid thing to do." Erik counters.

"Oh, really! But you are fiction, dammit! Fiction!"

"I'm not. I am as real as you are. (author's comment: Muha:D) And now calm yourself. I don't want to bruise your arms any furter."

Carla closes her eyes.

"This is so surreal." she mumbles to herself. "Surreal. Surreal."

But as she seems to remain peacful after that, Erik lets go of her arms and picks up her clothes to drape them over a rack in front of the fire.

"If you are real..." Carla starts again after some minutes of silence and motionlessness "If you are real, how comes that you are not dead? You were born in 1831."

Erik doesn't answer at first, but when Carla takes breath to repeat her question, he says unwillingly: "I don't know why I still live."

"I don't think I... I can accept that answer." Carla states, much more cautiously and friendly than all she said before. The permanent threat emanating from Erik's presence has finally broken through the wall of her refusal to accept the reality of her situation.

Without moving, he growls: "You will have to accept it as I will not give you another."

"Ok." Carla suddenly gives in. "I'll be quiet and nice and all until my clothes have dried." And with that she crosses her arms in front of her chest and stays where she is, on the threshold of Erik's library.

Some time floats away, undisturbed by any sound exept the soft crackling of the fire, until Carla suddenly sighs.

"I'm sorry..." she hesitates to call him by his name "Erik, I'm sorry. I am an idiot. I haven't thanked you for saving me from drowning."

Another silence follows, in which Carla walks to the empty stool standing close to Erik's armchair.

When she's arrived, he turns his masked face to her.

"If you hadn't fallen I would have dragged you off that railing."

Slowly, unbelievingly, she shakes her head.

"No! Don't tell me you kidnapped me!"

Erik says nothing, the look in his yellow eyes like stone. Hard, cold, unfeeling.

"Why didn't you take Leah? She's a phan, she'd kiss your feet!" Carla sobs, finally having reached the end of what she can swallow and digest. "I can't even sing! I don't look like Christine! I'm not..."

"Carla..." The expression in Erik's eyes has changed, and his voice seems to touch her like a soothing hand. "Please, don't cry. I'll explain why you are here. Be calm, child. Be calm."

One part of her wants to protest that she is no child and will not be treated like one, but the other part is just exhausted and overextended and wants to give in to the voice, the will, the presence.

She sighs.

Without making a sound, Erik gets to his feet and fetches a thick blanket from a dark corner of the room. Placing it in front of the fireside, good two steps away from his armchair, he orders Carla: "Lie down here. It's more comfortable than the stool and you can fall asleep when you feel to."

There is nothing insincere about the friendliness and concern in his voice, so Carla follows without hesitation.

"What a change in him." she thinks to herself as she curls up on the blanket like an embryo.

"I followed the guided tour since it entered the cellars." Erik begins after a while. "I do that nearly every day. I've been utterly alone for quite some time and this... guarding my domain and observing life creeping carefully over it's borders, staring, marveling, asking... I guess it keeps me from losing my faculties - although I must confess that I don't like schoolchildren and the acoustical pollution they do to my kingdom.

I was about to cancel my trip today. But then I saw you, following the wild hordes with such an inner tranquility. I could nearly feel how you let yourself get absorbed by the atmosphere. I saw in your eyes that you could see much more than your talkative, preoccupied phan friend ever could. I saw your smile while you admired the light playing over the lake. I heard your words through the water. 'And other people need diamonds to impress them.'

You are the most beautiful thing I've seen down here in a long while. So I stole you..."

Silence.

"What do you want from me?" Carla finally manages to ask, fear edging her voice.

Erik gives an elegant little shrug.

"I want your company. Honour me with fifteen days of your lifetime. I'll let you go after that, I promise."

"They'll be searching for me by now." she whispers, staring blindly into the fire.

"Even if they did, they would never find my house."

"That you were certain of in many versions of your story." Carla grates.

"Not a single one of these stories tells the truth."

"Not even Leroux'?"

"Especially not his."

It takes a moment for Carla to gather her strength, but then she pushes herself into an upright position.

"You read Leroux' and Kay's version and all?"

"You could say I wrote Leroux' version." Erik answers "And I sell copies of the first printing on ebay."

"Wait..." suddenly Carla is wide awake. "You... have _internet_ down here...?"

"If all Kay wrote is just a good guess, her statement that I belong to the future hits the point."

"So... you know all the talk about you?"

He sighs.

"I know all the talk about what people _think_ I am."

"Gosh." Carla slowly shakes her head. " You're totally crashing my world with every word you say."

"I'm sorry about that. Perhaps I should leave you alone now and we continue our conversation when you have recovered from this evening." He gets ready to leave the room.

"No, wait, Erik. I... I can't stay here. I have to go to university in half a week and I can't leave Leah all alone, I have to..." she stops and sighs. "I want to go back to the world I know. Please. Send me back, Erik."

She can feel him breathe somewhere above her.

Then blackness hits her.


	3. Paris After Midnight

Thanks to my second reviewer:)

**Chapter Three – Paris after Midnight**

**When** she wakes after what seems half an eternity, she finds herself snuggled into her bed.

Her eyes fall on Leah's sleeping face on the other side of the room. On the chair between the beds lie Carla's clothes, hidden under Leah's what proofes that she went to sleep earlier than her friend.

"So today is Opera day, eh?" she mumbles and stands up, pulling her black bath robe close around her.

Black bath robe... She stops in the middle of her movement. She is still wearing Erik's bath robe. Precious black satin.

All strength leaves her body and she lands not very gracefully on the floor.

"Seems I have a new habit." she groans, rubbing her knee.

"O beauty o' the morning." comes a croaking voice from Leah's bed "Hast thou fallen on the ghastly ground?"

"I slipped." Carla answers, pushing herself up again.

"Flashy thing this gown. I didn't know you own stuff like that."

"It was a present..."

"Uh, a rich and passionate lover?" Leah grins and then yawns and twists to scratch her back.

"Gosh, I hope not..." hastily Carla gets rid of the robe and goes to her wardrobe to dig out some fresh underwear. She stiffens when she sees the dark violet bruises on her upper arms, but Leah is already speeding to the toilet and has no eyes for anything else.

**While** draping some ceddar cheese onto her bread, Carla mumbles into Leah's direction: "The Opera..."

"Uh, yeah, the Opera! Wasn't that a gasp? Man, and these cellars! All the time I was asking myself if Erik's ghost might be watching us!" she giggles "I was looking so hard, all the shadows could have been him! And that guide woman was really up to date. She gave me a hard time proving my supreme nerdyness while all these impressions where battering my brain. And you? I didn't see anything of you until we left again and then you didn't say a word for the rest of the day."

Carla clears her throat, then she tries a guess.

"It wasn't that hard to be silent, I mean, you were talking for two..." she lets her voice trail off.

"Bahbahbah. But, ok, you're right. I should be thankful that you listened to my acute fit of phantomania without a word of complaint." she pours herself another glass of orange juice "Perhaps that's the reason why you are my best friend. I can't ignite the holy fire of Erik in your heart but at least your ears are made of the finest Mithril of Khazad-dûm and don't break, whatever comes."

"It's Mithril from Númenor, I tell you."

"Pah. It isn't proved that they found Mithril at Númenor."

"Take my ears as proof. Now. Want some hazelnut bribe? A little is left."

"Sure. Ringfreak."

**After** the breakfast, Leah returns to the Opera to have another look at the upper levels. Carla goes for a walk in the Jardins de Luxembourg, leaving her friend alone so that she mustn't consider the fragile dignity of her un-phan-y companion and can sing as loud as she wants.

When she finally arrives in the silence in the middle of Paris, she drags one of the green chairs under a tree, sits down and sighs.

What was it that happened to her yesterday? Was she really in two places at the same time? Was it a Carla dummy that listened to Leahs phantomania? Or was just her mind with Erik?

But if it was just her mind, how did the bath robe come to her hotel chamber?

So it must be the dummy solution. But how could someone design something so complicated so fast? Even for a genius that would be too tough.

So she must cling to Einstein, eh? Matter is energy and an electron is never only in one place?

Or perhaps there simply is no explanation. Or she has to go back to ask Erik.

Her stomach grumbles.

"Nah, expensive organ." Carla sighs and gets up to leave the park and buy something to eat. When she digs in her pocket for money, she finds a piece of paper that doesn't belong there.

Distorted red letters say:

'There is a gate at the Rue Scribe. You own the key tonight. -E.'

She stands there staring for what seems only a moment, but when she looks up from the letter again, the shadows have wandered quite far and her knees are weak from the lack of glucose.

**Back** at her flat she ponders if she should tell Leah the whole strange story. But although Leah is the one person she tells even her darkest and most ridiculous secrets, she knows that she would be no help in this concern.

So she tries something different.

"Imagine Erik was real..."

"Waaaaah!" Leah screams "That I live to see this day!"

"Man, calm down..."

"Dearest, be welcome in the warm arms of phandom. Sit down. Take a cookie. Tell me everything."

"I mean, if Erik was really real. Not as you see him, not as anyone imagined him, but as he really was..."

"Huh?" Leah pulls a face "Seems I lost you somewhere..."

"Imagine he really lived, but all that was written about him is fiction. You know, like... bad researched biographies."

"Ah, I see. Go on."

Carla snuggles into her pillow and thinks for a moment.

"Imagine you knew about him no more than what some hyperactive minds scribbled on paper and published. Imagine the story that started it all was manipulated by him. Imagine he faked the dokuments Leroux based his novel on, imagine he forced the persian to tell lies, imagine he didn't die... Imagine this stranger kidnaps you and asks you to stay with him for fifteen days."

"Darn, Carla." Leah sighs "You have one monster of an imagination... I don't know if I'd stay. I think..." she falls silent. "I guess I'd need some time to meditate about this."

"And if you had only a few hours to decide?"

"Yeah, go on pushing it, girl. Perhaps you should ask yourself: What would good ol' Frodo do in my situation?" She gives a devilish grin.

"Gosh, I read it five times. Compared to the twentyfour..."

"Twentyfive."

"..._twentyfife_ times you read Kay's Phantom it is nothing."

"But you surf the web for LotR-stuff."

"And you have over thirty phantom bookmarks in your browser. Now give me some chocolate."

Leah lays the back of her hand to her forehead and groans.

"If you go on eating like that I'll die of adiposity."

(For all who didn't figure it out till now: It's a joke between them. Leah weighs a little too much for her taste although she eats normal, and Carla has a more 'ideal' frame although she eats very much. So they say Leah grows fat because Carla eats so much)

"Sure you will. But to come back to my question..."

"Ok. Back to the real world... So in the essence you want me to tell you if I'd stay with an absolute stranger who claims to be the Phantom of the Opera..."

"No, who really _is_ Erik." Carla interrupts her. "Imagine you just know he is the real person who lives under the Opera and messed around with Leroux' novel about some infamous Phantom."

Leah bites her lower lip. Then she wildly gestures: "Gosh, but if all novels are a lie then he isn't the Phantom but just someone who I absolutely don't know although I think I know him for he is what I think to know to be the fictional... Ok, I lost myself somewhere..." She clears her throat. "Now, the Phantom is the guy from the novels. The man who kidnapped me is someone different, someone I absolutely don't know... It could be any perverted freak. He could have sex with rats... Man... Not even for the thrill of it would I stay!" she frowns "Uh... I guess I... suddenly understand Christine..."

Carla sighs.

"Thanks for your suggestion, Leah. It was pretty insightful..."

"You're welcome. Now, give me some of that evil chocolate... Gosh, I understand Christine... I feel like a traitor."

**She** wakes with a start in the middle of the night.

Yawning she gropes for her clock on the floor besides her bed, but all she finds is a small piece of paper.

In the puddle of silvery moonlight light the red ink looks black. It's the letter she found in her pocket and she can't remember having it taken out of there again after she returned to the flat.

'There is a gate at the Rue Scribe.'

"There is no gate!" she mumbles angrily to the paper. "I've been there yesterday ago and I've seen no darn gate!"

But the letter insists that there is one.

"This is madness. Sheer surreal madness!" She throws the paper on the ground, snuggles under her blanket again and makes an attempt to fall asleep. But the blackened red words don't let her come to a rest.

"I had just forgotten that I own a black bath robe." she whispers "I had forgotten that I accidentially bruised my arms. I have written that letter myself because I am absolutely out of my mind and should be in an asylum."

But neither the letter nor the gown does believe her. Not to speak of herself.

She can feel the seconds ticking away while she struggles with herself.

"What? Go out there? Now? Are you nuts?"

'You own the key tonight.' the letter reminds her.

"Now you shut up. I didn't ask for your opinion." she growls. "Darn, it's the middle of the night and you're not even half awake, Carla. Ignore these idiots and get some sleep. Or even Frodo couldn't carry the rings you'll have under your eyes tomorrow." She lays her hands over her face. "I don't want to go back! Not even to return you stupid gown! Now be quiet!"

Some moments of utter silence pass away.

"Damn you all."

**Her** boots make no sound on the pavement as she passes shop displays and flashy neon signs. Small groups of people move through the twilight, some silent, some talking. All that seems to be far away and Carla feels utterly alone with her fears.

So she begins to talk softly to the rolled bath gown in her arms.

"I'll rip you at the seams. Just for fun. And then I'll burn the letter. Just for fun, too. I hate you both. Why do you do all this to me? I didn't ask you to wake me in the middle of the night and send me on a journey to a nonexistent gate, talking to inanimate objects! I only wish I hadn't such a good memory. I only wish I would get lost in this big hell of a city and never find the Opera!"

But finally she steps out on the Rue Scribe.

"Ok, there is no gate. No darn gate. See?" She stampers down the street, tracing the wall of the Opera with her hand. And there really is no gate. "Wanna see it again, stupid robe?" she returns to her starting point in the same manner. "Again, no gate. No fking gate! And now, once we're here we could go to have a closer look at La Madeleine by night as well." she decides and begins to shuffle down Rue Scribe again.

Then a draft hits her cheek and sends a wisp of hair across her face. When she slowly turns, her eyes fall onto the black bars of a massive iron gate, hanging silently on it's hinges as if it's been there for ages.

Panting she reaches into her pocket to pull out a huge key. She stares down at the silvery metal, for a moment unable to think and unable to move. Total numbness.

Her fingers claw into the black satin of the robe as she violently shakes her head.

"Now, you should have been prepared for something like this." she finally grates "He already showed you what he's capable of, didn't he?"

Silence.

"Would there be any use in refusing?"

Silence.

"I'm afraid! Heck! Let me go. Please!" Softly she begins to sob.


	4. Christine

For your pleasure: Chapter Four.

Enjoy and review. Pretty please:)

**Chapter Four – Christine**

**The** lightless empty space behind the gate seems to welcome her. It's not a warm welcome but it feels as if someone is trying very hard.

Carfully, one hand sliding over the stone wall at her side, she moves forward.

When the gate behind her falls shut with a lout clattering sound, she jumps, losing her feeling for direction to the darkness for a moment. Scared, her hands grope for the wall, and to her relief, find it immediately. Carla gives way to something between a curse and a sob, then she leans against the stones, until the dizziness subsides.

She takes a deep breath.

"Erik?... Erik, are you there?... I hope you haven't called me back to show me your amazing piece of empty space... Erik?" Eventually, a needlepoint of yellow light catches her attention. She moves her head a little and blinks to figure out how far this bit of light is away and if it's moving. After a moment she comes to the conclusion, that it's some twohundred meters away but coming closer.

A few minutes later a small boat docks close to her feet, it's lamp letting the water, the floor and the walls break the darkness' surface as if they've just been created by the golden shine.

The sound of heavy fabric, the sound of a heel on stone, then Erik is beside her, offering a gloved hand to help her get in the boat.

"I... I've just come back to bring your bath robe..." she stammers, suddenly remembering the satin that is damp where her hands claw into it. "Here... uhm... thanks for lending it... I... I have to leave again now, I'm sorry..." She pants. These few words have utterly exhausted her.

"I'm afraid it's too late for that." Erik answers, the look in his eyes like stone again. "You've been down here much longer than you think. The night is over. The key is my property again for the next fifteen days."

Violently Carla turns around. And really, the gate is gone. Her desperately searching eyes only find a wall of old, rough stones. Not knowing what to feel now, she turns back to Erik.

"_Why are you doing this to me_!" she finally shouts on the top of her loungs.

For a moment it's only the catacombs that answer by returning her question over and over again.

In the following silence, Erik whispers: "I already told you, Carla."

**"Your** room is the third one on the left side." he informs her after they entered his house through what seemed to be an endless succession of massive walls and grinning, forbidding portcullis.

Without a word, Carla shuffles in the named direction. She closes the door behind her, throws the bath robe on the bed and lies herself down on the thick carpet in the middle of the room.

She feels dead. Alone. She closes her eyes.

Some hours later, she is woken by a knock on the door. Clumsily she stuggles to her feet and wipes her face.

"What is it?"

"May I come in?"

"Sure."

The door opens and Erik looks in.

"Good morning." his eyes try a smile "There is a breakfast for you in the dining room, the first door on the right."

"Ok." Carla mumbles. "But first of all I need to take a shower..."

"There are some of your own clothes is in the wardrobe." he informs her and is gone.

"So he went to the flat and fetched my stuff, right?" she hisses to herself. "Gates that pop in and out of existence, time that is treated like a chewing gum, blantant ignorance towards the fact that humans use to be dead onehundredandseventy years after their birth, why should it amaze me, that he can enter a flat? Or perhaps he just beamed it all here! Scotty, Scotty, do you hear me?" with an angry bang the bathroom door closes behind her.

**She** finds the dining room empty. There is a pot with fried eggs on a heating plate, a basket with fruits, delicate carafs with milk, cocoa and several juices, glass bowls with cereals and yogurt.

"At least I will not starve to death." she comments this sight.

When she reaches her chair, she notices a letter lying there.

'Come to the library afterwards. -E'

And this she does.

**"Was** the breakfast all right?" Erik greets her.

Carla nods, taking a seat on the stool that is now cushioned with a soft pillow.

"It was great. Thank you... Especially the apples."

Erik nods acknowledgeingly.

Tense silence.

"I'm... not sure about how to begin all this." Erik confesses after a while. "I've been alone for over onehundred years now."

"And as this is the strangest thing I've ever heard..." Carla aggressively tilts her head "... why don't you just tell me how it happened that you didn't die?"

Erik doesn't react.

"If you can't explain it, describe it!" she snaps.

Slowly he turns his head to stare at her.

"So you are too angry with me to be afraid of my reaction..."

"Oh, I am afraid of your reaction! But I... I don't know what to do! All this here isn't supposed to ever happen to anyone! It's like... like... I don't know what it's like! It's just... " with a violent dismissive gesture she jumps up and runs back into her room.

**Her** tears have long dried, when Erik enters her refuge without knocking. Silently he goes to the small writing desk on the right and takes a seat on the fragile chair in front of it.

With a strange, silken calmness to his voice, he asks: "What do I have to do to keep you from hiding here the next fifteen days?"

"Tell me about Christine." she whispers. "Tell me about someone who had to be with you, too."

Erik closes his eyes. Then he begins to speak.

"The first time I saw her was during a choir rehersal. I had neglected my duties as artistic counsellor of the Opera management for several months and had come to the two way mirror of the rehersal chamber to make an inventory list of the talent in the choir. I was too early so I could witness the chaos and noise thirty young singers are able to produce just by warming up their voices. There was only one who was silent..."

Carla listens with her eyes shut. And Erik's voice paints pictures in her imagination:

Hidden in the farthest corner of the room, close to the window, a small singer sits. Her hand strikes her pale cheek with a wisp of her straight black hair, while her blueish grey eyes observe a tiny spider that is crawling over the floor next to her. Suddenly another singer with untamed blonde curls emerges one of the squealing groups and stampers to the girl in the corner. With a well targeted movement of her foot she smashes the spider.

"Would you be so kind to start warming up now, ghost child?" she then scolds "I don't know what _you_ think, but _I_ don't want the next performance to be an utter shame because you stared at insects instead of developing your skills."

Her lips pressed to a thin white line of contrariness, the pale girl jumps up and kicks the blonde fury's shin bone with her boot. They fight like cats until Monsieur Gabriel, the choir master, enters the room and shouts: "Meg Giry and Christine Daaé!"

Immediately the girls let go of each other and narrow their eyes in an expression of guilt.

"Come over here!" Gabriel commands.

They follow.

"Now, how old are you? Twenty years, I guess. Now, would you tell me why you _insist_ on behaving like children over and over again? If you don't stop these fights now I'll have to talk to the management about which one of you is to be thrown out of her contract! Now go on your positions. And if I hear any false tones in the next ten minutes this rehersal will go on without you!"

After her performance of childlike wonder and wild aggression, the invisible visitor behind the two way mirror is prepared to hear pure dreamstricken passion from the pale girl's mouth, but he is painfully disappointed. Her technique is flawless, but she seems to choke in the struggle between the choir master's command to sing with emotion and her fear to follow it. Attacking a bigger, stronger and more popular girl and giving in to the music in her throat seem to be two very different things to her.

The man behind the two way mirror feels total sadness in the face of this shameful waste. But the longing to help her come over her fear is not only caused by his love of music and perfection...

Some time passes, until Carla realizes that Erik not only stopped speaking but left the room.

Slowly she gets up and walks to the mirror in her bathroom.

Her mind grows numb while her hand caresses the straight black hair that frames her pale face with the blueish grey eyes.

**"Show** me a picture of her, you must have a picture of her, I must see her!" she blurts on the verge of panic while storming into the library.

Oddly calm and without any visual emotion in his yellow eyes, Erik takes a small flat square of polished metal out of the chest pocket of his suit and hands it over to her.

The square turns out to be a picture frame with a lid to protect it's precious content, and when Carla tries to open it, it doesn't work because of her shaky hands.

With a sigh Erik takes it back and opens it for her.

Even at the first sight of the black and white shot, her back gives in with relief.

Carla's own face resembles that of Isabelle Adjani with it's sober, somehow calm lines that seem to fit nowhere but in a gothic novel.

Christine Daaé however looks quite impish. Her face is small with a pointed chin and nose, a self-willed forehead and a widow's peak. These are not really the features of a beautiful woman, but the smile of her tiny mouth and her huge almond eyes give it a strange glory one can't help but marvel about.

"Thanks for telling me about her." she whispers when handing it back to Erik who closes the lid and puts it back into his pocket without looking at it.

"You're welcome." he answers. "And never fear that I confound you with her."

When Carla closes the door of the library behind her again, she can hear him lose the fight against a strangeled sob.


	5. No Coffin

A writer's virtue: flexibility...:D

Dear readers, I have changed the story a bit: Carla and Leah are not visiting Paris, they've just arrived to go to university there.

**Chapter Five – No Coffin**

**The** next morning Carla wakes from a strange dream. She can't really recall it but it had to do with a child that was turned into a ghost and therefor couldn't sing anymore although singing would have been the the only way for it to regain it's human form.

Ignoring her breakfast she directly walks into the library, searching for distraction.

"How about a guided tour through the really interesting parts of these cellars?"

**"So** you don't sleep in a coffin?" she exclaims, barely hiding the disappointment.

"Well, at least it has a canopy and black curtains." he answers, following the odd need to defend his chosen resting place.

"Oh, no offense intended!" Carla hurries to say. "It's just... an inseparable pairing in my mind, the Phantom and his coffin."

'But I won't comment on the huge organ, nope, never, noo.' she mumbles in her mind. 'Although it's really extraordinary huge... No, Carla! Keep quiet. Don't be an utter shame!' So she concentrates on his as well huge but far less equivocal wardrobe.

After visiting Erik's chamber, they stroll through wide rooms full of musical instruments of all kinds, a studio with easels, loads of canvases (author's comment: plural, uh?O.o), brushes, vessels with pigments and oils, blocks with drawings, some abstract, some photorealistic, several large laboratories stuffed with experimental apparati, chemicals, tons of scientific instruments and books, and finally a surprisingly small chamber containing only a mainframe and a writing desk with a G4 Powerbook (author's comment: As if Erik would use a PC, pah:D).

"So this is your internet connection?" Carla bravely comments this sight.

"Yes. But sadly there is no connection for the next fifteen days." Erik answers.

"Meaning?"

"In a nutshell it means that while you experience a time span of fifteen days down here, on the surface only approximately three hours pass."

Carla stands dumbstruck for a moment.

"No wait... So you can really manipulate time?"

Erik nods.

"My state of existence has some advantages."

"Why did you then do the dummy thing when you first took me here?"

"Dummy?" he frowns.

"Leah told me that I was with her all the day."

"Ah, that. Well, you weren't with Leah that day. I just prevented her from perceiving your absence."

"Gosh, you mean she talked to her self all the day?"

"Exactly."

"Oh... But again: why didn't you fake time on that occasion?"

"Well..." he clears his throat "All is relative, but there are several degrees and time has the highest. It is easy to manipulate in comparison with - for example - matter, but it takes... well, time to get a hold of it, to specify 'where' and 'how much' time you want to form. Perhaps you remember the moment you stared at my letter, that turned out to have been over two hours..."

Carla puts her hands on her hips.

"You were watching me?"

"Of course. If you make an experiment, you should be able to see the outcome, don't you think?"

"So I was your guinea pig?" she asks, not very happy with that idea.

In a defensive gesture he puts up his hands.

"I was planning to put you into a manipulated time field for fifteen days, I had to see if your body would be able to cope with it."

"Oh... yes, that was necessary." Carla admits. "Now... what about time travel? Can you do that?"

"I can 'travel' forward, like you did on the letter occasion. But there is no way back in time."

"Ok. And now tell me how exactly you do this messing around with time!" she demands to prevent him from giving in to sad thoughts that could petrify the atomsphere again.

"First you tell me how exactly you bring your muscles to strech and contract at your will."

Carla pulls a face.

"Meaning?"

"It's just the same thing. I don't know how exactly I do it, but it works."

Carla sighs.

"Ok."

**When** they return to the library, Carla walks over to a small shelf filled with Poto-literature. She pulls out Leroux' version and strolls back to her stool.

"Now, you wrote this, right?" she asks, holding up the small black book.

"One could say that. I provided most of the vital information Leroux based his 'report' on."

"For example?"

"Christine's letters. I wrote them."

"You mean you dictated it to someone who copied her handwriting...?" Carla asks automatically.

"No."

"But... with all due respect... I mean, your writing is... at least clumsy..."

"So you think someone who can draw photorealistic isn't capable of reproducing something as simple as some letters?"

The unmistakable aggression in his voice causes her to put up her hands in a gesture of self-defense.

"I'm sorry, I didn't intend to upset you with my question. It's just... Why do you write like a child then?"

He hesitates.

"I... I _drew_ Christine's letters. I don't like writing. I... don't understand it. Call it a disability. Why shouldn't my distortion spread out to my brain?" An angry finger that is poked willingly into a wound that isn't even trying to heal anymore.

A long moment of silence follows in which his breathing calms down again.

As he doesn't leave or send her away, Carla continues her interrogation: "What about Nadir? Did he tell the truth?"

"The Daroga..." Erik sighs. "Well... I gave him the faked letters and told him the story that he had to reproduce for Leroux. It didn't take half a day to convince him that what I told him was the truth. He had always possessed a rather unstable sanity and seeing me again alife and well nearly thirty years after he believed me to be dead did the rest... But he was a good detective in his time." he adds, his voice edged with regret.

"And... why did you do all this? Why did you invest all this energy to interfere with Leroux' research?"

"Because I had the right to determine what this overly curious journalist found out about me and Christine." his hands are clinched to tight fists "Because I had the right to protect our story from being displayed in an ignorant world. They'd never understand why..." he sighs "But that would go too far. I shouldn't tell you the end of the story first. Now, let me hear some more questions about the book."

"Ok..." Carla consents. "Since you are not dead and Leroux proved that it can't be a communard... whose is the skeleton they found in the catacombs?"

The stiffening of his posture tells her that this was the wrong question. She bites her lips and takes breath to say something, but Erik pre-empts her.

"It's the skeleton of Raoul de Chagny."

"No, wait!" Carla stares at him unbelieving and with an odd trace of hope. "Does that mean you buried the young hero in your... your front garden? After he died at your hands, I assume...?"

He gives a bitter loughter.

"The young hero, yes. But he killed me first. Or at least tried to do so."

"Ok... Uhm, are there any other significant people buried down here?... Other aristocrats? Or a Primadonna?"

There is a moment of deadly silence before Erik answers: "I buried Christine right beside him."

"Ah... but... I... uhm..." Carla stammers "Some years later, you mean."

"It was the same night." His voice is nearly inaudible.

Carla swallows sadly. So his story has not the peaceful ending that she instinctively hoped for when he told her about Raoul's death.

"They didn't find her, though?" she then asks softly.

"I took her remains to a safe place after they found Raoul." he explains, making a great effort to let his words sound firm and calm. "Then I stole him back for her. She wouldn't have wanted to be parted from him..."

There is a strong feeling of sadness, emanating from Erik's presence, that Carla would like to flee very much, so she asks: "Would you like to be alone for a while?"

But Erik shakes his head.

"Please don't feel oblieged to leave... Why don't you tell me something about yourself? You're from Grenoble, right?"

"Is my accent that obvious?" she whines with played despair, supporting his attempt to turn his mind to more pleasant topics. "Well, I'm afraid there isn't much to say about me. I'm the only child of an ingeneer and the manager of a small student bar. At the moment I'm studying archaeology and philosophy here in Paris and hope that I'll soon dig my first scientific hole into the hot sands of egypt. In Grenoble I have a yellow tomcat who's named Canary, four canaries who are called Tomcat and one canary who prefers to be called Phoenix after she survived Canary's first and last canary hunt. My oldest and best friend is Leah, the phreak; we share practically everything, sadly including our taste in men. Uhm... The weirdest thing I've ever eaten was tuna with strawberries and..." she shrugs "the weirdest thing I've ever done was a walk through a gate that wasn't there one moment ago... I guess my life is mostly rather boring for the noninvolved observer... But I could tell you about some good books I read. 'The Lord of the Rings' for example. Do you know the story?"

"I only heard about it."

"Oh, you should read it when you have the time. Tolkien designed thousands of years of history and many different languages for his creatures."

"Well." Erik stands up. "That sounds creative. Tell me more while I prepare a meal for you."

**The** next two days are filled with increasingly relaxed discussions about books they both read, here and there digging deeper into philosophical or historical topics, and when Carla enters the library on the sixth day of her visit, a big smile appears on her face.

"You seem to have slept well." Erik greets her.

"Oh, like a baby. But the main reason for my facial expression is that when I opened the door the sight of you and all your books was so familiar. I guess I've arrived here. It's important for my wellbeing to feel like that."

"I'm happy to hear that."

"So..." she lets herself fall on her stool "Did you sleep well, too?"

"Relatively, yes." he answers, obviously feeling honoured by her question.

"And do you feel in the mood to tell me the next chapter of your story?"


	6. Everything

Re-read: 3-18-05

**-Chapter Six – Everything- **

**"After** the rehersal I followed her to her dressing room.

Only solists and their understudies get own dressing rooms, and Christine was the understudy of Cherubino, one of the bigger roles in Mozart's 'Le nozze di Figaro'. I wasn't surprised about that although Cherubino is a very passionate role. Julie Perigot, the main cast, was known to have a robust health and I presume they did it to separate Christine and Meg in a diplomatical way.

I patiently waited for her to come out, then I followed her again into the foyer.

A young man, obviously belonging to the navy, was waiting there..."

When Christine sees this man, she makes a sound of utter delight and nearly flys down the stairs. Her pale cheeks flush while she gives him a boisterous hug.

"Oh Raoul! My Raoul! Why didn't you write me that you'd come by for a visit? Oh, I missed you so!"

What passion fills her voice while she spreads her sympathy over her friend! The man who observes them from his hiding place clenches fists.

Like this he will make her sing!

The next days are filled with numerous preparations, especially concerning the huge mirror in Christine's dressing room that he once used as a shortcut to the communard road, but disused when it turned out that an even shorter and more practical solution could be constructed by building in another trap door. He has to make it the fortysixth two way mirror in the opera house and oil the hinges. He wants to be able to see his pupil while he teaches her, and he wants an easy way to bring her flowers or likenesses to reward her for good progress and obedience.

And all the time he sees her radiant smile, the vivid glow in her eyes when she ran down the stairs to embrace her beloved. It takes some time for him to figure out that the sting in his chest is envy.

The night everything is finished, is the night of the first performance of 'Le nozze di Figaro'. Content and calm the man sits in box five. Julie Perigot has a health of iron, he tells himself. There is no way Christine could be forced to sing Cherubino tonight, no way that she could be urged to stand down there and be choked by her own voice before hundreds of ears and eyes. No way. Meg teases her for her either utterly emotionless or strangeled songs over and over again, that's torture enough.

The Opera begins. All singers are in a good mood, one can feel that they like Mozart and that they are - for the most - content with their roles. The man is relaxed when the fifth scene starts and SUSANNA gives in to her anger about MARCELLINA.

SUSANNA (furious):

Go, you pompous, educated Lady! Because you read some books and tormented the graceful Countess in her youth, you are as proud as a peacock!

CHERUBINO (insecure):

Susanna, my dear!

The man jumps to his feet.

CHERUBINO (frightened):

Oh, Susanna, my dear! Is it you?

His fingers claw into the railing.

CHERUBINO (with despair):

Oh, my poor heart! What dark fate!

He groans.

It's Christine! For some wicked reason it's Christine who stands down there on the stage, dressed as a page boy, hiding her shaky hands behind her back.

Motionless he stares at her fearful eyes that keep creeping back to box three where her precious Raoul would sit if he weren't back at his military ship for the next six weeks. How the man wishes to sit in that box, how he wishes to meet her gaze and give her courage. But there is nothing he can do. He can only listen how she tries not to love while she sings of love, how she feels ashamed in front of the irritated looks of the audience and the resigned whisper of her collegues from the backstage.

CHERUBINO (voice petrified):

... At just the names of love, of pleasure,

My breast is stirred up and changed,

And a desire I can't explain

Forces me to speak of love...

In the sixth scene the COUNT enters the stage and CHERUBINO has to hide behind a chair. This moment is used to drag the black haired girl off the stage and put one with blonde curls in her place.

The man leaves box five immediately.

When he arrives behind Christine's mirror, she is already lying on her small chaiselongue, sobbing helplessly. It threatens to break his heart to see her like this. And before he knows what he is doing, he has already whispered her name.

"Christine..."

She gets up with a start.

"Christine, don't cry like this..."

Bewildered she looks around the tiny room.

"Who is there?"

"Don't be afraid..."

"Who are you!"

"Open your heart to me and I will make you sing."

"Oh my... you... you are the Angel of Music!" she whispers, as if she were afraid it would sound too ridiculous to be true if she said it aloud.

"I can be everything for you." the man answers.

What follows are three weeks of a delicate dream in which the Angel of Music explores the soul of his protégée. And under his guidance she slowly begins to lose her fears.

Here Erik stops.

"What happened to Julie?" Carla wants to know.

"She broke her foot, five minutes before she had to be on stage."

"Nah!" she pulls a face. "That would fit into a drama... And Christine... what was she so afraid of? I mean... what's so horrible about the connection of music and emotion?"

"I'm sorry." he answers stiffly "But I won't allow you that insight in Christine's soul."

Carla lowers her eyes.

"You've not come over her, have you? Not even after onehundred years..."

"I fear so." And with that he gets up and leaves.

Slowly growing angry, Carla stares at the door that is falling shut behind him.

So this are the facts? She is good enough to serve him as a distraction and discuss literature, but when it comes to his pain he prefers to be left alone with his precious memories.

Suddenly she presses her hands to her mouth.

She's being jealous.

**On** the verge of panic she hastens into her room. She throws her clothes from the wardrobe on her bed, gets her stuff from the bathroom... She can't stay here. It's impossible! He'll just have to let her go!

**Softly** she knocks on his door. When there is no answer, she opens it to see if he is there at all.

And he is there. Collapsed to his knees before the metal frame with Christine's picture, his head buried in his hands. He doesn't make a sound but his shoulders are shaken by his violent sobs. And Carla can see that before his sadness there was anger for not far from where he kneels lies something that must be his mask, broken to little pieces.

Suddenly his head shoots up and his yellow eyes stare at her from a face that is too horrible for words; not so much because of it's distortion, but because of the destructive emotions that dominate it like festering wounds.

Petrified Carla sees him get to his feet and run for her with unbelievable speed. Her mind prepares itself for the powerful impact and the death that must surely come when the back of her head is crashed into the opposite wall of the corridor.

But all that happens is the door being shut with an earshattering bang. And through the aftermath of that bang Carla can hear Erik's steps, slowly returning him to the metal frame.

Stabilizing herself with one hand on the wall of the corridor she staggers back into her room.

One hundred years of mourning. One hundred years, and no end in sight. It's a wonder that there still is some sanity left in him.

Carla sighs and lets herself fall onto her bed.

She can't leave him to this.


	7. A Night Out

Ok, Ladies and Gents:

If you are overly fond of ALW/MC/SB and them being critizised causes you physical or emotional pain: take some pain killers or psychopharmazeutics before reading - or don't read at all.

And pretty please: don't pour out your rightful wrath over the poor poor review-function.

**Re-read: 3-18-05**

**-Chapter Seven – A Night Out-**

**The** next morning starts with terrible indecision.

On the one hand she wants to go to him, at least to see if he feels better again. On the other hand her pride wants him to come to her and apologize for chasing her away in such a shocking manner.

Finally her stomach decides that pride has not enough calories to keep a girl alive that had her last meal twentyfour hours ago.

**While** Carla eats her breakfast, Erik lies on the moist ground in a hidden cave not far from his house.

His long, pale fingers caress the earth under that her hand is buried.

"I cried so long for you." he whispers "A hundred years I cried for you... But two days ago Carla made me smile and... for the blink of an eye it didn't hurt anymore... Could it be that finally... I'm hearling? Could it be that... that... I start letting you go?"

He can feel that she smiles at him, but for the first time since he bedded her here it doesn't cause him to dig in the sensless hope of finding her down there, alive and well.

**"She** said it felt like being obsessed." he explains softly when Carla has taken a seat on her stool. "She was very susceptible to music... It was alright with her when feelings that weren't her own came to her clearly from the outside, and it was alright as well when her own emotions bursted out. But alien emotions that she evoked in herself by her own singing irritated her otherwisely well developed sense of identity.

She passed the auditions at the Conservatoir de Paris with great success. Her voice had enough feeling then to convince the jury that she had more potential than 'just' an instinctively nearly flawless technique. But when her father died unexpectedly half a year later, the shock of losing the most important person in her life, the only connection to her mother who died when Christine was four years old, deprived her voice of even the last hint of emotion.

The behaviour of her collegues first at the Conservatoir, later at the Opera, didn't do much to give her courage. She knew that she could sing better than all of them, yet they loughed at her, the 'ghost child' that lost all it's feelings when it died.

She was so ashamed..."

Carla sits there silently for a moment. Then she presses out a strangled: "Thank you for that! Now... uh... I'll be right back..." and hastens to her room.

She doesn't know why she cries. She should be happy, honoured by his sudden decision to trust her, but the silent tears keep running down her cheeks and there is an emptiness inside her that she can't explain. Perhaps it would make everything better if she would dare to embrace him.

When she returns to the library after a long while, Erik is gone. She searches every room that she knows of, but he is nowhere to be found.

**"Why** didn't you leave a note or something? It was just scary to be here without knowing where you are, when you'll be back or how one opens that stupid piece of wall that is your front door." she tells him the next morning with a slightly quivering voice "At least you could have said something when you returned."

"I'm sorry. I didn't think it would have such an impact on you to be here alone." he says with an obvious feeling of guilt "I came to your room when I returned but you were already asleep."

"And where have you been so long?"

"I was visiting someone..." he answers vaguely. But from the overtones Carla can tell that this someone is female and long since dead.

'Stop being jealous, darn!' she silently scolds herself 'Stop this whole madness right now!'

"I'd like to go for a walk." she suddenly announces. "I start getting claustrophobic in all this artificial light."

Erik hesitates for a moment, but then he agrees.

**While** Erik rows them across the lake, Carla marvels at the beauty of the endless dark succession of sculpted columns that support the ceiling above the lake.

"Will we leave the cellars through one of your secret passages and seemingly pop out of the wall in the Foyer de la Chante?" she suddenly asks with an adventurous tone.

"No."

Carla pulls a face.

"Why?"

"Time fields need a gateway and that's..."

"But I didn't have a gateway when I read your letter." Carla interrupts him.

"You had the letter."

"But it worked only once."

"I let the time field subside after you returned."

"Ok. But that doesn't answer my question. Can't we just visit the Opera in our current fast-forward state?"

Erik shakes his head.

"It's not a state of us, it's a state of the time field we're in. And, so to say, outside this field nothing exists for us."

"But when I read the letter there still was the city around."

"No, it wasn't. You just didn't perceive it. And when you looked up again you had already passed back into the 'normal' time field."

They've reached the kay and Erik carefully docks the boat and stabilizes it with the oar braced on the ground in the shallow water.

Gracefully Carla disembarks.

"How does such a field look?" she then asks.

"It's a slightly fluctuating ellipsoid whose longest axis is mostly parrallel to the surface on wich it's built up."

Carla frowns.

"Wouldn't a bubble be more stable and economic?"

"In the dimension of matter and space that would apply." Erik agrees "But in the dimension of time an ellipsoid is the optimal form."

"Ok... But how can an ellipsoid, a geometrical figure, exist when there is no space?"

"You really should study physics when you're through with archaeology." he suggests with an acknowledging look to Carla "If you like I will show you my theories when we're back at the house."

She gives him a wide-eyed stare.

'Archaeology, physics, and why not architecture and medicine, hah? Oh, face it, Erik, you're a nerd.'

But then she smiles.

"I'd very much like to see that theories, thank you."

**When** they have passed the gate, Carla irritatedly looks up at the dark sky.

"Didn't you say it was morning when you took me to the boat? You lied to me..."

Erik strikes back one side of his cloak, feeling warm in the midsummer air.

"Would you have preferred to hear that I will keep you, no matter what you want?"

Carla hesitates for a moment, considering the grave meaning these words could have; but when she looks testingly into Erik's eyes, she sees nothing alarming.

"At least that would have been honest." she finally states.

Erik gives an elegant shrug.

"In some situations, lies are the more gentle way."

"Nah, you!" Carla groans, while some butterflies play seek-and-hide in her stomach. She suddenly feels very stupid.

**"What** do you think about phans?" Carla asks with an adventurous tone, while they drive towards the Bois de Boulogne in the carriage that waited for them right outside the gate.

"Well... I follow the development of that community with some interest, but I try not to identify with all this. It would be far too painful."

"Painful?" Carla lifts her eyebrows.

"Imagine being analyzed, interpreted and buried under compassion and sympathy by thousands of strangers who project all their needs and wishes either on the alienated image that you created of yourself to keep them all away, or on the fantasies some other people had, based on that image.

No, the only good phandom did me is the realization that the percentage of people who would faint or run screaming at the sight of my naked face has decreased since I was born."

Not knowing how to react on the topic of his face, she gives him a faint smile.

"Now... Webber, Crawford and Brightman..."

"Oh my. The queen of phan topics."

"Yes. Tell me what you think about them! And, by the way, I have heard not a single sung note from your mouth yet; that must change. We're approaching the perfect setting for a life performance of 'Music of the Night'."

"Carla..."

"Don't argue! I deserve revenge for my neckerchief!"

"Can't I simply buy you a new one?"

"Oh, you can. But that's not sufficient."

Erik gives a deep sigh.

"Webber is not as creative as most people think, Crawford's timbre belongs into an Opera Buffo and his vibrato is overdone and Brightman..."

"She acts and sings like a sedated hamster, right?" Carla interjects.

Erik gives a tiny amused loughter.

"A hamster, yes, that fits."

"Yah! I knew it!" Carla performs a sitting version of the classical 'strike' pose. "Phans all over the world will hate you for that."

"I know." He opens the door of the carriage that has come to a halt before the gates of the Bois de Boulogne. "So let's hope that there are no phans around..."

"They mostly look like normal people but..." she jumps onto the pavement "Exept the driver we are alone, so... Oh, hehe, imagine someone stood in sight contact with the gate tonight!" she giggles "He must think he's gone crazy!"

"Luckily at this time of the day only drunkards come near the Opera House."

"Hey. I am no drunkard!"

"Only drunkards and beautiful women." Erik corrects himself, making a not so earnest apologetic little bow into Carla's direction.

Against her will Carla blushes and hastily turns her face towards the big lake that they're approaching.

But he has seen her darkened cheeks and it causes an odd feeling in his stomach. With a mixture of guilt and helplessness he gropes for the picture frame in his pocket and takes it out to caress it, hidden in his hand.

Carla sees his movement from the corner of her eye.

'It's strange.' she thinks 'He seems so strong and... majestetic, and yet he is so fragile and utterly dependent when it comes to her.' But somehow she is quite sure that it wasn't like this when Christine was still alive.

She clears her throat.

"To make things easier for you, I will start." Crawford-like she strikes her hair back with both hands; then she clears her throat again and begins to sing in a warm, dark, shaky voice: "Nighttime sharpens, hightens each sensation..." She gives Erik an asking look "Oh come on, at least you know the melody and can hum it!... Darkness stirs and wakes imaginations... Please, Erik, just for the fun of it!"

"No, Carla..." he softly refuses. "Not yet. But you can sing on. You have a nice timbre."

"Really?" she helplessly blushes again "Nah, I bet you're just flattering to avoid singing yourself. Perhaps you have a horrible voice... Ten bucks that you croak like a toad!"

With the hint of a smile in his eyes he shakes his head.

"Come." He starts to amble along the bank of the lake "It was you who wanted to go for a walk."

"Then it will be my mission tonight to make you sing." she runs a few steps to catch up with him "Ten bucks, that's a lot of chocolate."

"Don't you want to know how the story of Christine and myself goes on?"

Carla sighs

"Oh well, you got me. Angel of Music, speak, I listen..."


	8. Daemon

**Re-read: 3-18-05**

**-Chapter Eight – Daemon- **

**Christine** and her Angel dreamed away three peaceful weeks.

Then a letter came.

"You look exhausted, Christine."

"Oh..." her blushed cheeks pale "It's nothing, I... I just ran all the way to be on time for my voice lesson."

"Your watch must be broken, my dear. You are twenty minutes early."

"So my hurry was useless?" a nervous loughter blurts out between slightly shaking lips "Well, I'll bring the stupid thing to a watchmaker as soon as possible."

While she hastily hangs away her cloak, fetches a ribbon for her hair and assorts her scores, she can feel the eyes of her invisible Angel following her every movement.

When he suddenly speaks again, she jumps.

"You are lying to me, Christine. Don't you know that I can't bear lies from your beautiful mouth?"

"I... I didn't lie to you, Angel, it really was nothing, just... " she shrugs and makes a dismissive gesture with her awkwardly quivering hand "... just a short letter from Raoul. He is on his way back to Paris. He'll stay only a week. His ship..."

"What have I told you about Raoul, Christine?" the Angel interrupts her with a dangerously calm voice.

"He is a distraction and he will thwart my development. But I..."

"But still you _insist_ on having contact with him!" his words seem to echo behind the mirror.

"Angel, please, you can't force me to break with him!" Christine pleads, her wide eyes full of fear "I know him since I was a child, he was the one who kept me alive when my father died, he is the only human being that cares for me on this whole planet!"

"You have an angel who cares for you."

"But an angel can't write me letters! I can't embrace an angel when he returns from a journey! You can't take that away from me. I... I don't want to give my life for an emotional voice, I..." she stops, suddenly scared of her own brave contrariness. "Angel?... Are you still there?" her hand feverishly caresses the pane of glass "Angel, speak to me!" When the mirror remains silent, she bursts into tears "Don't leave me Angel, please! Come back to me! I'm sorry! I'll do everything you want! I'll... I'll burn the letter! I'll never see Raoul again, I promise! Just come back to me, please..."

"Christine..." the voice from the mirror sounds infinitely sad. "I am still here. Don't cry. Don't burn the letter. I don't want to take your life away from you."

"So I may see Raoul again?" Christine sniffles hopefully.

The Angel closes his eyes. He clenches fists.

"You may." he eventually gives in "But don't tell him about your Angel and don't let him steal your heart. It belongs to me, don't forget that, Christine."

"I will never forget that, I promise!" she whispers.

"Now." the Angel sighs warmly "Let us delay your lesson. Tell me, are you collegues still cruel to you?"

Christine gives a slow nod.

"It's worse than ever. Meg is constantly having mishappenings and she keeps blaming me for it. As soon as no master is around she starts teasing me." her voice is now strangled with tears again "I don't understand her, I never did anything but defending myself, I don't..."

"Oh, Christine..." the Angel whispers full of regret "Forgive me, I did not mean to cause you more tears."

"It's Meg who makes me cry. It's not your fault." she stammers, wiping her eyes.

But it is his fault. For he is responsible for Meg's little misfortunes. It seems the girl needs a conversation in private...

"I will make her stop, Christine." he softly promises "She will never bother you again."

"That is good." Christine sighs and leans her tired head against the mirror.

Her Angel kneels on the floor beside her, parted from her only by a cold pane of glass. How he longs to caress her tender skin.

Three days later he sees to a certain blonde fury. And he spares nothing exept her life, and that only because her mother begged for it on her old rheumatic knees when he summoned her to his box to give her one final warning for her daughter.

Meg doesn't believe in the Phantom. She thinks her mother is just seeing things and her collegues are all stupid and hysterical. So when the voice of her friend Jammes calls her on her way from the restroom, she follows it, cursing softly, even when the highpitched girlish voice transforms into something different. She believes it to be one of Jamme's demented jokes. And she only looks a little irritated, when she passes around a corner and finds herself in an impasse that wasn't there the last time she walked down the corridor.

"Congratiulations, Jammes." she sneers. "So you found one of the mouse traps, mad Garnier added to his Opera, ey?"

"Jammes is rehearsing." a poisonous voice whispers from all directions, as a wall silently closes behind Meg. "Welcome to the Phantom's girl trap."

She turns around to stare at the wall angrily.

"Jammes, you stupid cow! Open that wall again!"

Instead of a response, a draft circles the small room and extincts all the torches that lighted it.

"Jammes! Open it _right now_!" Meg shouts through the blackness. "I swear it, if you don't leave me out of here immediately I will..."

"You'll what?" it whispers menacingly into her right ear. "You're trapped." it whispers into her left ear. "You're in no position to threaten anyone." it whispers from the ceiling.

"Who are you!" Meg furiously demands.

The answer sounds hollow, as if coming from a deep pit.

"I am the creature that you know as the Phantom of the Opera."

She feels her left hand caught by a rope and pulled downwards so that she violently falls to the floor, the impact pressing all air from her loungs.

"And you, Meg Giry, are a cause of incessant annoyance to me."

Her right hand is caught and pulled in the same manner.

"You are mean, ignorant and self-righteous."

Her left foot is caught.

"You make Christine cry."

Her right foot is caught. And this is, when she finally starts to shout for help.

"Today I will give you some good reasons to leave Christine alone."

His whisper overpowers her yelling effortlessly and shocked she falls silent again.

Slowly he pulls a long knife out of a metal scabbard. Then he takes a seat on Meg's chest like a daemon. In the total darkness he can only smell her fear, feel her racing heartbeats throbbing against his thighs.

"Petite Meg..." he gently lays the blade across her mouth "I could cut your face to bloody little pieces while my weight on your chest causes you to suffocate." He follows her neck with the flat side of the blade "I could slit your throat."

"Get off of me, you perverted bastard!" she manages to hiss.

"So you still think me a living breathing man!" he hurls his knife aside and takes a match out of his pocket. One hand clawing into her face, he lights it.

"Meg..." he whispers over her choked screams "_Leave Christine in peace or I will come at night, rip out your heart and eat it while it still beats_!"

The blonde fury was tame after that...

When Erik began to tell, Carla was walking close beside him, but now she has brought some considerable distance between them.

"You must have known that I am a violent man." he says when he looks up, his hand still caressing the metal frame.

"How many did you kill in your life?" her voice sounds strangled.

Erik turns his eyes to the lake.

"Far too many."

"Why!" She nearly sobs it.

"_You ask me why_?" he suddenly shouts at her "Do you really think there could be anything fictional about the way a face like mine denies a man all the safety, the respect and the means of self-defense you get as an admitted member of society? How many so-called 'righteous' men would help me if my life was threatened? The 'righteous' men themselfes came at me! And do you really think..." he makes some steps towards her, that she answers by backing further away "Do you really, honestly believe that one is deeply repelled by the thought of tortouring those whose normal faces give them the right to detest him, abuse him and deny him all that makes life bareable? Oh, I feel remorse for those who died at my hands although they meant no threat to me, and I'm not trying to find excuses for what I've done, Carla! I always had it in my hands to give up and let 'justice' have it's way with me. But this community of normals, this _humanity_, never seemed to be worthy of such a selfless deed." Suddenly he turns away from her with a violent movement. He stays silent for a moment, and when he speaks again, his voice has changed totally. Hate and rage have given way to sadness and utter exhaustion. "Leave now, Carla. Go back to your life and forget about me." When she doesn't move, he turns around and yells at her: "_Leave me_, stupid girl!"

But she stays. Tears stream down her face and her crossed arms are locked to her chest, her fingers clawing in her shoulders, in a gesture of defense, but she stays.

The sudden memory of another teardrenched face knocks him off his feet.

"You still are my Angel." she had whispered "My Angel." And she had whispered it into his naked face.

When he looks up again, he sees that Carla has moved closer a few steps, her eyes filled with concern for him.

"Are you alright?" she asks with a shaky voice.

"Yes." he presses out, slowly getting back to his feet.

"Your heart is not... I mean..."

"It's broken." he answers in a sarcastic tone. "It's broken but it still works fine... I guess you don't feel like walking the park anymore."

"No... but... we'll stay out here until you've calmed down." she decides, gathering all her strength to dare it.

He looks at her testingly for a moment.

"You can still leave, Carla." he eventually reminds her.

But she shakes her head.

"I... I'll never know the whole story then." she stammers "And I haven't seen your theories yet. And you haven't sung for me. And you still owe me a neckerchief."

'And I'm stupid and deserve no better.' she silently adds 'I believe I've already fallen in love with your gentleness and your wounds.'


	9. Beaten

**Re-read: 3-18-05**

The next chapter for you.

I changed some more details in the previous chapters – thanks to my beta reader. Nothing big, but Erik is a little more menacing now.

**Thanks** **to all my reviewers!** I'm very happy that you like what I write! You encourage me to write on:)

Galasriniel: I'd feel honoured if you would put it in your fic as a 'must read'!

**-Chapter Nine – Beaten-**

**"I** will be gone for some time, Carla, perhaps until tomorrow evening." he tells her when they return to his house. "I'll show you how the door works so that you can go out and stroll around the lake if you get claustrophobic again. If you want to explore the catacombs take some chalk with you to mark your way. You can use some of that in the arts storage. Torches are here in this box. Always take some matches and one more torch than you think you'll need."

Carla nods tiredly.

"Thanks. I'll go to my room now. The darkness outside has made me all sleepy."

**His** hand rests on hers again, the small yellowish-white bones shining in contrast to the dark earth.

He didn't dig her out to see if she's alive; he did it to be as close to her as possible. He needs this now.

To carefully free her bones from the earth, to arrange them on the gound into the same correct position they had in the grave - it helped him to calm his racing confusing thoughs. Snuggled comfortably to the earth, a decent half armlength beside her, he can finally rest. He is at home here, close to her in the endless cool darkness.

When he wakes again in the same position in that he fell asleep, he carefully caresses her cheek.

"Carla is still here, Christine." he whispers into her ear "I wanted to tell you this." Then he lies there silently for a very long time with his eyes closed, recalling the sound of Christine's breathing, the fragrance of her hair, the feeling of her small warm hand in his. He loves her more than anything else in this world. "She wanted me to sing for her." he eventually continues. "I did not do it. You wanted to hear my voice all the time, do you remember?" He sits up. "You said my voice is the reason that you will always call me Angel exept when you're angry with me. You were so brave facing me once you knew that I would never fly away and leave you, that I would always be there for you. And see, onehundred years and no three days have passed without me visiting you at least for a while. I know how you hated to be alone in the dark... Do you like the flower that I brought you from the Bois?" with his chin he indicates the blue blossom that lies beside her grave. "As soon as the time field has subsided I will bring you roses again." He caresses her skull where her hairline used to be. "Carla is nearly as beautiful as you were. I flattered her in an amicable way and she blushed. I already told you that I feel... sympathy for her, but when she blushed... it nearly felt like what I feel for you... it felt as if I were betraying you. But you don't consider yourself betrayed, do you? You know that I will always love you and that I will never stop visiting you as long as I live."

Carefully he picks up her bones and lays them back into the shallow hole that is her grave. Then he gently covers them with earth. Wiping his hands to clean them he gets up.

"Carla told me about a book, 'The Lord of the Rings'. It seems to be a rather dark tale but it speaks of hope as well. I will read it and see if you could enjoy it, too. Perhaps I'll read it to you when we're finished with 'Kim'."

After one last smile to her he turns around and heads back to his house.

**Having** dozed on her bed a little, Carla decides to go to the library and doze on in front of the empty fireside. Her thoughts and feelings drift aimlessly around Erik, Christine, herself...

He can be so cold, so cruel, so regardless, and yet he acts like a perfect gentleman, full of kindness and concern and moved by honest tears... So who is he? And how can she feel for him, if she doesn't know who he is?

After a long while of futile argumentation with herself, it is clear, that in the world of her feelings for Erik there is nothing consistent or certain, exept this one thing: she wants him to heal, to let go of all the memories and feelings that slowly destroy him. And no matter what else she believes to feel for him, no matter what she believes to want, no matter what he sees in her, she has to tell him this.

**Holding** her torch close to the moist ground, she searches for his trace, some kind of visible path... There it is. With hushed steps she follows it's meandring way, nearly losing it three times where it disappears some meters from narrow entrances that are artfully hidden in the shadows. Finally she reaches the threshold of a small cave. It is only four or five steps long in each direction and in front of the walls stand numerous huge burning candles. On the ground in the middle lies a surprisingly small skeleton and close to it, curled up like an embryo, his hand placed on the skelton's fingerbones, sleeps Erik.

Normally, Carla would have been alienated or repelled by this view, but there is an utter, nearly serene tranquility, hovering over the dreaming man and his dead love. And suddenly she knows that she has no right to interfere with the way in which he chose to spend the rest of his eternity.

Beaten, Carla turns around and leaves as silently as she has come.

**When** he enters the library on the evening of Carla's ninth day with him, he finds her lying on the blanket in front of the fireside, reading a book.

Standing motionlessly on the threshold for a moment, he follows the line of her shoulders and neck with his eyes.

In all the many years that he's been observing the guided tours, he has seen more than one woman who resembled Christine in one way or another. But never did strike him the idea of stealing one of them.

So why now? Why her?

And what does it mean that Christine insisted on him attending the tour in spite of his plan to read to her for the rest of the day? He could feel quite clearly that she wanted him to go. Did she know, that he secretly longed for a walking companion? And did she know that Carla would stay with him out of her own free will? It would explain the lack of surprise that he perceived when he told her that Carla is still there. For the blink of an eye, he gets the impression, that his love is trying to make herself superfluent.

"Good evening, Carla." he greets his guest.

"Hello." she closes her book and sits up "How was your visit?"

"Relaxing." he answers, a little astonished about the question. "And now I will give you what you stayed for - that means, if you don't prefer to read."

"No. Tell me the next chapter. And tomorrow I want to see the theories."

"Good. But first of all I want to give you the replacement for your lost neckerchief."

Carla frowns.

"But how..."

"It's not a new one." Erik explains and hands her a beautiful dark blue silk shawl "It belongs to Christine; I suddenly felt that she wants you to have it."

"Oh, I... I can't accept that..." Carla mumbles mechanically, touching the soft, here and there bleached fabric full of respect. It nearly seems to vibrate from all the memories that are bound to it - and she realizes that the lack of this strange perception is what has been alienating her about Christine's room all the time.

"You can accept it. Christine insists that you take it. "

She hesitates another moment, but then she winds the shawl around her neck and turns to Erik to show him the outcome. It's the oddest feeling she ever had, putting on something that belonged to such a special person.

"It perfectly matches the colour of your eyes." Erik remarks with a surprised tone in his voice.

"Is that such a strange thing?"

"No, it's just that I had taken the one with the lighter blue colour. But Christine was right, this one is perfect."

"You... kept all her belongings?" Carla asks softly.

There is a short silence.

"I changed nothing about her room." Erik finally answers. "I just wipe the dust and the cobwebs away every now and then."

"So my room is not Christine's..."

"No. I abandoned the old house after Christine..." he can't even think the words "I built a new one of the same design behind the outer wall of her room."

"There are two houses of this size?" Carla frowns.

"No, I enlarged the new one after a while. One grows to own many things when he lives as long as I do."

"May I see Christine's room?"

"No. I... don't think you would like it... the carpet ist full of stains."

'Blood.' Carla thinks 'Then she was shot or stabbed... or did she kill herself?' That's an option she never considered before.

"Then tell me the next chapter."


	10. Heaven and Hell

**Re-read: 3-18-05**

**-Chapter Ten – Heaven And Hell- **

**The** days that Christine shares with Raoul show her Angel without doubt that he has to find a way to have her all for himself. He doesn't want to hurt Christine, he doesn't want to force her, but he can't stand the certainity that this handsome young Vicomte will take her away from him. He knows that she could never _love_ him, his whole life no one has ever _loved_ him, but he can't give up without trying.

Four days after Raoul has arrived in Paris, there is a knock on the door of Christine's dressing room.

"Raoul?" there is a trace of fear in her voice "What... what are you doing here? I told you to always wait in the Foyer!"

"I'm sorry, my heart, but I can't wait until after your rehersal. I..." he sighs "I have to go back to the ship. The repairs they had to do will be finished much earlier than they expected. I will leave Paris again in a few hours."

"Oh, really?" she tries hard not to cry. "Well, I wish you a safe journey, Monsieur."

Bewildered, Raoul takes her hand.

"Is everything alright with you, my darling?"

Hastily she withdraws her hand and backs away half a step.

"I feel fine, Monsieur, thank you. And I'd be very grateful, if you would leave now. I have to prepare for my rehersal."

"You are more distanced than ever." Raoul gives a nervous little loughter. "If I did something to hurt you, I am very sorry. It wasn't my intention, to ever..."

"It's not that simple." she interrupts him coolly "And I'd appreciate, if you would leave now, I have to make myself ready for the rehersal. Again, I wish you a safe journey. Good bye, Monsieur de Chagny."

"Christine..." his voice quivers between perplexion and anger "I'm not sure if I understand..."

"I said 'Good bye'. Don't miss your train!" with that she pushes him off the threshold, closes the door behind him and locks it.

Immediately her cold facade begins to crumble.

"Ouch." she vehemently wipes her eye with her hand "An eyelash or something... ouch..." mercylessly the tears begin to flow down her face.

"You showed disobedience of the worst kind, Christine. You lied to me. You betrayed me." a hiss that suddenly becomes a yell. "_Your heart is not where I want it to be_!"

"And you lied to me, too!" she retorts with her well known selfmurdrous contrariness, ducked under the power of her Angel's rage "You told me, you wouldn't want to take my life from me, you wouldn't want to hurt me! But you took it away! You forced me to lie to Raoul, to hurt him! He's gone now! He'll never come back! He's too proud." With a sudden cry she throws herself on her chaiselongue and hides her face in her hands, sobbing helplessly. "And now you'll leave me, too! Meg was right, I'm a shin bone kicking brat and I'll die alone and it's all my fault." after that, she falls silent. No more sobs, nothing but tiredness on her white, teardrenched face.

And her utter despair cools down her Angel's anger.

When she hears his voice again, she doesn't move her head.

"Take me away from here." she whispers "I don't want this life anymore."

The Angel stands petrified for a moment. Christine wants him to steal her, to do, what he secretly wishes for since he first saw her flying down the Grand Escalier to embrace a handsome Vicomte...

Softly, his voice begins to fill the small dressing room, caressing, permeating Christine's mind, until she follows it's wordless command through the opened door of her mirror. The moment when she lays her small warm fingers into his enticing hand is completeness, fulfillment, and he wants nothing more than this moment to last forever.

But the moment passes and he leads Christine to his house at the lake.

When his song has lulled her to sleep, he carries her into the bed in the room of dreams that he didn't believed to ever have an inhabitant. Then he stands there beside her bed and feels greed crawl out of the darkness of his body. The greed to touch her, to kiss her, to be with her in a way that is all but decent.

Violently he turns away to flee his mind into the safe refuge of music and morphine.

"So you're an addict..." Carla mumbles, partly involoutarily.

"Do you think anyone could survive what I've been through without a substance that allows him to find some peace, even if it's only an artificial one?" he answers with a slight hint of aggression.

Carla defensively lifts her hands.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to offend you! It's just... you surely know that some phans believe your music should be powerful enough to give you all the peace you need."

"Do they. Have you ever tried to sing a peaceful song the way it is meant to be when you're angry? Surely it doesn't work often."

"I see your point... Now, you took Christine to your house. Did... did you really picture a future with her?"

Erik's eyes give a sad smile.

"One can't help but do that... I hoped that she would stay with me forever, that she would forget about Raoul, that she..." he shrugs, a little helpless as Carla feels. "What does one hope for when he is in love?"

'Gosh!' she sighs silently, when his pronounciation of the last word disturbs the butterflies in her stomach, and turns down her face to hide it's stupid dreamy expression.

"But she didn't forget about Raoul, right?"

"She tried to... Now, excuse me, I remember that you still haven't seen my theories about time fields and I have to dig out the notes I made and copy them so that you are able to read them without difficulties." With that he gets up and leaves the library into the direction of his laboratories.

'So he's a bit angry with her...' Carla thinks, astonished about this fact. Immediately, her feelings start to jump around, and fighting a really stupid grin she shuffles back into her room.

**Determined** she bangs her book on the nightstand and then presses her hands on her stomach, but that doesn't have much impact on the hysterical butterflies. He's still angry with Christine. He partially blames her for whatever happened...

"You're feelings are assholes, Carla, and you know it's senseless." she tells herself "He may be angry with her, but he loves her as well and is happy with that. You have no right to interfere and there is no chance for you to win his love. And man, you don't even _know_ him! On the contrary, everything you find out about him just lets him seem more alien! What you feel is just a stupid girlish crush for some aspects of a person, and stuff like that isn't worthy of any effort or risk! Plus: even if you someday could be certain that you love all of him and even if he were interested in a relationship with you, how do you think you would live together? How would you introduce him to your parents and Leah, hah? 'Mum, Dad, Phreak, this is Erik. He's 170 years old and lives under the Paris Opera House. He's a morphine addict and talks to the skeleton of... Leah, would you _please_ stop licking his shoes?' Oh, forget it, Carla! Forget it!"

But she can't. She scolds, she argues, she explains... it's all useless. She can't keep her heartbeat from fastening when she imagines Erik embracing her, and she can't keep her mind from creeping back to this picture over and over again. She starts walking around her room, kicking and boxing the walls every now and then.

Finally she leans her sweaty forehead to the cold stones.

"I can't help it. I... I'm in love with him. Hell! I wish I had never entered these darn cellars!"

**When** she enters the cave, she gets the feeling that she disturbed someone who was totally absorbed into marveling at the flames of the candles. There is a moment of utter silence, then Carla suddenly feels recognized and greeted with a warm smile. It's a strange feeling for she can't percept a presence, she didn't percept a smile, but she reacts as if she had.

Hesitantly, Carla steps to the middle of the room.

When she lets her eyes wander she gets the impression of a royal tomb: The walls are covered with artful carvings, no figures but patterns, symmetry, nameless forms that seem to dance, alive in the softly moving candlelight. And all the patterns seem to emerge or aim at the head of the room, where the names 'Christine Daaé' and 'Raoul de Chagny' dominate the wall. And although the pattern doesen't change it is obvious that to it's creator this is Christine's place and Raoul just a couple of bones in the dirt.

**"**He frightens me and yet I'm... I'm... in love with him, Christine." Carla confesses after a while, preparing herself for some kind of angry, jealous reaction - but all she feels is a friendly sparkling in blueish grey eyes. "You... you're not opposed?" she asks, quite astonished. "Oh... well... I... I don't know what to do, Christine. Somehow I wish I could beat down all the sympathy that I feel for his nice half. I wish I could just hate him from the deepest pits of my heart. And yet I want to swim against the flow of all the fears and be with him... And it's all so _senseless_. Why do I love him! He loves only you and there is no darn place in this world for Erik and Carla! He couldn't be a part of my life." she sighs miserably "I so don't understand all this, I... Why must it all be so complicated? My heart is ripped in two perfect halfs and my mind bursts while it tries to make sense of this all..."

'Stop thinking.' Carla suddenly knows that Christine would say that if she could. Then she feels that her host is absorbed into beholding the candles again.

"What does that mean? Christine, what does that mean?"

Carla feels a sigh, then an insecure search for the one word that says it all.

'Trust, Carla.' Christine's eyes can see deep into her heart. 'Trust.'

**"Stop** thinking, trust." Carla throws herself onto her bed. "What the hell do you mean by that, Christine? Shall I run headlong into disaster with my eyes open and have trust that Erik and I are sent into the same asylum? Shall I stop thinking that he could love me and have trust that I can forget about him? Shall I stop thinking that I love him and trust my sense for the rational? Your suggestion did nothing for me!" She yawns. "Man, I only wish I could sleep."

**She** gets up with a start, when Erik knocks on her door the next morning.

"Oh, I woke you up, I'm sorry."

"Never mind." Carla croaks "What time is it?"

"Half past one pm. You didn't come for breakfast so I thought I look if you're alright..."

"Uh, yes, I'm fine. Just a little headache..." she coughs "And my throat is scratching."

"You've catched a cold."

"No, I just didn't sleep enough."

"I'll bring you something."

"No, really." she clears her throat "I just need a breakfast and some orange juice... I swear, I'm fine." she ensures him, when he doesn't move.

"Just as you wish." he finally agrees and leaves.

**Nibbling** on the apple in her left hand, Carla sits at the writing desk in her room. She sings - her voice showing it's well trained steadyness this time - while she throws a pencil sketch of Erik's mask on the paper.

"Since you went away, days grow long,

And soon I'll hear old winter's song.

But I miss you most of all, my darling,

When autumn leaves start to fall."

"So you _lied_ to me, Carla."

She turns to the door with a start. Erik stands on the threshold of her room, one fist braced against the door frame.

"You lied to me at least once." slowly he starts to walk over to her.

"Erik, I... I'm sorry, I...don't understand..." she stammers while her hand hastily crumbles the sheet with the sketch.

"You told me you couldn't sing. But you can sing, you surely had voice lessons for quite some time. And I assume that you study voice at the Conservatoir and not archaeology."

"I took private lessons for six years, I sang in the school choir and I am lead singer and play the e-guitar in Leah's and my little punk project 'Chablis'." she confesses, trying to sound more apologetic than unnerved "But I told the truth about my study."

"And why did you..." he stops, the anger in his eyes turning into understanding for a second. "What did you draw there? Are you hiding more talents from me?"

"No. I honestly don't have any talent concerning pencils, papers and elaborate shapes."

His eyes rest on her face testingly, but then he nods and grabs her sleeve to drag her out of the room.

"You will show me all about your voice."

**"Now." **he hits some harmonic accords on his piano. "I want to hear the song that you practiced most."

Carla sighs.

"Can't I pick another? I really hate that song and..."

"Didn't I make myself clear considering lies, Carla?"

She groans inwardly. But as Erik's voice sounds more like a kind reminder than a threat, and his presence is feeling strangely encouraging since he took a seat at his piano, she doesn't protest. She can imagine worse things than singing a love song for a good humoured Erik.

"The song I practiced most is 'Total Eclipse of the Heart' by Bonnie Tyler, the woman my voice teacher had a crush on. I could sing 'Holding out for a Hero' or 'It's a Heartache', too, if you like."

"No, sing 'Eclipse'. _A capella_. I do the 'turn around', you the rest."

"Oh well..." she supports herself at the piano and clears her throat.

Some moments pass in silence, then Erik sets in, his voice soft, dark, enticing even in the tiny piece of music.

"Turn around..."

"Every now and then I get a little bit lonely and you're never coming 'round." she answers, feeling very strange.

"Turn around..."

"Every now and then I get a little bit tired of listening to the sound of my tears."

"Turn around..."

"Every now and then I get a little bit nervous that the best of all the years have gone by."

"Turn around..."

In the chorus Erik joins in, slowly rising from his place at the piano, coming towards her, the regardless demanding overtone in his voice now unmistakable.

Carla feels adrenaline shooting into her blood, her heart begins to race, her breathing grows stronger and deeper... Her wide eyes are locked to his, while she learns what it means to be possessed and dominated.

'Sing! Sing for your life!'

And she sings, digging out all her energy and knowledge, because the insane killer who is still coming closer leaves no doubt that his threat isn't empty; he _will_ use physical violence if he isn't convinced that she gives him all she has. She wants to flee... and yet she feels drawn towards him and lifted by his voice as if it were a pair of wings that helps her to obey his command.

When it is over, Erik's hands reach for her upper arms to keep her from falling. His grip is hard and painful for a moment, but soon he shows utter gentleness and concern.

'He hurts you and then he cares for your wounds...' she thinks halfheartedly, for when he speaks to her, she lets herself fall thankfully into the wellknown warmth of his voice.

"Are you alright?" he asks while he leads her to his chaiselongue. "Perhaps I was a little too vigorous for you."

"No, I feel fine." she ensures him - and one moment later starts to cry.

Seeming a little helpless in the face of what he has caused in her, Erik sits beside her.

'You scared me half to death, idiot! Embrace me and promise you will never do it again!' Carla wants to shout but she doesn't dare and instead tries hard to stop her tears from falling.

"Christine cried after the first time, too..." Erik eventually mumbles and picks her up to carry her into her bed. His heart is still racing, just like Carla's.


	11. Death

Fluff... FLUFF! O.o Ok, _that_ can't be ignored...

**To** all fluff-lovers: no offense meant, but this story isn't suppose to be fluffy. My phic 'Trust' is fine pink fluff, but this here ain't. All fluff in this story is an accident or absolutely unavoidable because love is a central theme.

**I did** some re-reading and de-fluffed Carla's psycho-dispos. Where once was definite fluff are now nice twisted thoughts and feelings. Me loves it:D

**And** now a chapter about the terrible meaning of the word 'silence'...

**-Chapter Eleven – Death- **

**"Oh** gosh!" she buries her face in her pillow when Erik is gone again. "_Why did he do this to me_! And what the hell was it anyway?"

He turned a harmless pop song into an SM anthem of life and death, and Carla nearly didn't recognize her own voice, that was electrified and frighteningly strong in the fit of mortal fear that Erik forced upon her with velvet gloves.

"Couldn't he just warn me? But he didn't warn me either when he seemed to be about to crash me into the wall. You see, he's regardless, Carla. He cuts you and then he is sweet again and says sorry. Or not even that..." Slowly she sits up "And this hell of a tuition concept let you overcome your fears, Christine? Surely just because your sanity didn't survive it... And your body...?" she frowns "Did... did... _he_ kill you? Or did you kill yourself?... What happened on your last day?... If I could find your room... How would Erik reproduce a house? Symmetrical... that would mean..." she stares at the wall behind her bed "That would mean the door is somewhere here..."

But although Carla knows how Erik hides his secret doors, she can't find it - if it's there at all.

"So I have to ask him or sneak into his room while he's at your grave..." she mumbles, crawling under her blanket.

No five minutes later she is already asleep.

**"Wha**t time is it?" she asks yawning, when she meets Erik in the library some time later.

"Half past five pm."

"Oh, I thought I had slept longer..."

"Do you feel well again?" his eyes show concern and a trace of remorse.

"I don't know... I..." she shrugs. Since she woke up, she feels a strange calmness in her. It is as if her involountary flirt with a violent death, the minutes in wich she so clearly knew that she is mortal while at the same time her voice was stronger than ever before, had made it clear to her that one can only fly when he gives up all footing. Stop thinking. Trust. "Will you tell me the next chapter now?"

Erik sighs.

"I fear the next chapter is the last. Are you sure you want to hear it now?"

"Oh, quite sure... And... if it's the last one you could tell it to me in... in Christine's room...?" she suggests.

"No." Erik answers, his voice soft but steady "Her room is opened only once every four months and I will not change that habit for you. It will remain closed for another six weeks."

He falls silent and Carla can tell by his posture that every second in Christine's room is a torture for him.

"I can go there alone, if you..."

"No. Just accept it, Carla. And don't try to find the door. There is only one key and that is hidden in a place that no ignorant will ever find, not even by chance."

"Ok. I'm... sorry that I mentioned it." she gives in. Surely it's better this way. She has never been in a room where someone was killed or committed suicide and the only puddles of blood she has ever seen were in the TV; who knows how she would react... "But you will tell me the last chapter, won't you?"

**When** Christine returns to her flat in order to organize the dissolution of her household, she finds a letter. And this occursed piece of paper tells her that Raoul de Chagny is hurt and irritated by the behaviour of his beloved, but very willing to hear her explanation and forgive her when he is back in Paris after the end of his education in two weeks. The letter says that he loves her.

They meet secretly, they engage secretly, but Raoul gets several acute fits of jealousy because he is unwilling or unable to understand what binds his lovely fiancée to the ugly monster that inhabits the cellars of the Paris Opera House.

One day they have another argument about it in front of the Opera, from which Christine tries to flee by hiding on the Opera roof. On their way up, the shouting couple passes a corner that contains more than only a shadow...

Concerned about Christine's wellbeing, her Angel follows them.

"You don't even wear the ring!"

"Oh yes, I do!" she frees herself from his grip and pulls at the chain with the medaillon around her neck. "It is in there! And I explained to you more than once why it is necessary that I hide it!"

"Oh, right. Your monstrous voice teacher will punish us for it." Raoul sneers.

"Don't you dare to speak of him like that!" Christine yells at him.

"It's been five weeks now, Christine, _five weeks_, and still you play this masquerade and let him compromise you!"

Christine's small foot hits the wall and she gestures helplessly into the gray sky.

"You will not even _try_ to understand it, will you?" Then she lets her hands fall down again and hides her face in them, no longer furious but sad and disappointed "Not even for the love of me will you try to understand it..."

Raoul sighs, his own anger tamed by her sudden change of expression.

"All I do is for the love of you, Christine. Don't you see that? I witness the change your _friend_ has caused in you and I can't help being deeply concerned. Not two months ago you couldn't bring it over yourself to sing Cherubino and now..."

"So that's the reason of your jealousy?" she spits "You can't bear that someone other than you showed me how to overcome my fear?"

"No, Christine, no. But you sang the 'Queen of the Night' as if one hint of imperfection would kill you and the whole audience..."

"I am still practicing. I will become more relaxed in time."

"Christine..." gently Raoul takes her hands in his. "My love, I fear for you, don't you understand that? You are behaving so strange since you are under the influence of this new teacher. I look at you and can't find the Christine I know, the Christine I grew up with. It's such a severe change..."

"Well." she slowly withdraws her hands and turns her back on him to stare into nothingness "Perhaps I am no longer the Christine that you know. Perhaps I died and was reborn... I died in his voice, again and again, to become what I truely am..."

"Don't talk like that, please!" Raoul seems to be frightened by her oddly calm words "You always were what you truely are. Look at me, Christine..." her grabs her shoulder and turns her back to him "Look at me! You have to wake up from this hypnosis. Come back to me!"

"I'm wide awake, Raoul." she whispers dreamily.

"No, you're not!" the fear in his voice sounds shrill and he shakes her roughly "This monster has you in it's grip, don't you see that? Wake up, Christine! Face it! You have to rip lose! Let us run away together, let us hide somewhere he will never find us."

"He is no monster, Raoul..." she seems to be close to fading " I won't betray him like that... I am all he wants..."

"And you are all _I_ want, too! Now, it's in your hands! What is it that _you_ want?"

"I don't want to lose one of you..."

Raoul closes his eyes for a moment.

"You can not avoid that, Christine." he then sighs with resignation "I will leave Paris and never return. Come with me or stay with _Erik._"

"No, Raoul!" Christine sobs, suddenly panicking and clawing into his jacket "Don't force me to do this! Please! Don't..."

"I will not sit around and watch you being destroyed by a _creature_ that claims to help you. Now decide, Christine. Decide if you want to stay here or if you love me."

"This is not fair, Raoul! I can't just..."

"You can, Christine. And you will! Come with me, we can be out of Paris in three hours..."

"But I can't leave him without a word of goodbye..."

"You'll have to. Don't you understand that he will not let you go again once he knows what we're planning?"

"I _will_ go back to him to explain and to say goodbye, Raoul!" she hisses, her old contrariness beating down all other feelings again "You can force me to decide but that's all."

"And he can force you to stay with him! Stop being so naive and trusting! He's a murderer, you told me yourself! He's capable of things I couldn't even imagine! If you go back to him it means that I'll leave Paris alone!"

For a moment there seems to be utter silence in her. But then she gives in to her fiancé.

On their way down, the couple passes another dark corridor. Suddenly a long, skeletal hand shoots out of the blackness and gets a hold of Christine.

The door her Angel uses for this instinctive abduction is one of the long disused, so it doesn't close right behind them and Raoul can take up a desperate pursuit. Had he been alone it would have been no problem for the Angel to outrun the Vicomte and keep the mechanisms and trapdoors secret, but although Christine follows him nearly willingly she slows him down. Only one door is left between them and the Angel's house when Raoul finally loses their trace.

Too angry to even yell at her, the Angel throws Christine to the floor of his room.

"You are engaged to the Vicomte for five weeks and now you want to leave me without a word of goodbye?" he hisses.

Christine curls up herself and puts her arms around her head in a desperate attempt to save herself from the burning rage of her tutor.

"Forgive me, Angel! Forgive me!"

"You promised me your heart was mine! Mine alone! And you betrayed me! Why, Christine? Why? Didn't I respect all your wishes? Didn't I treat you like the precious being that you are?"

"You never did me wrong, Angel, never. But... I... I can't help loving him! I tried so hard to be yours entirely, so hard, but... I can't, I... Forgive me, Angel..."

When he says nothing for a while, Christine dares to look up. Her eyes meet the gaze of her Angel who has soundlessly cowered down beside her, so that she recoils.

"You don't know how much I love you, Christine."he whispers sadly.

"I wish I could stay, my Angel, but I love Raoul. And to leave you is the one condition of this love."

He jumps up and turns his back on her.

"You give in to conditions?" His voice is acid.

"I give in to my heart... God, my life is destroying itself!" she then cries out "It's dissolving to ashes before my very eyes and there is nothing I can do about it!... Let me go, Angel. Please, let me go..."

There is a long silence, disturbed only by Christine's sobs.

"You have to come back to bury me." her Angel finally gives in "That's the other condition of this love. Come back here in three days and bury me..."

"I will come back, my Angel, I promise."

When she is gone, he falls to his knees, crying helplessly like a child.

**"Angel?"** Calling softly, Christine opens the door to his room. She knows it's stupid to call him. She knows he's dead. But she doesn't want to accept it.

"Angel?" On she searches, until she finds him, sitting upright on the bed in her room.

Petrified she stands on the threshold, new tears burning in her eyes, while he gets to his feet.

"Christine..." His voice sends a visible shiver through her body. "Forgive me. I will not let you go again."

"You're alive..." she sobs softly.

"I couldn't do it, Christine. I love you too much."

"You're alive!" a cry full of relief. She seems to fly the few meters that part her from her Angel and embraces him like she would never let go again.

There is a moment of completeness, a moment when the world around them crumbles and dissolves, when nothing counts, nothing exists but Erik and Christine. And in this moment she takes off his mask, to kiss his forehead, his temples, his cheeks, until her lips finally merge with his and let him know what felicity feels like.

But then a terrible bang rips the air apart and Christine's knees bend, a veil going down in front of her wide eyes. Another bang, a sharp pain in the Angel's shoulder. Unbelievingly he looks to the door, where Raoul stands, a smoking revolver in his hand, the mouth in his white face opened to a silent cry of sheer anguish. He fires again but this time misses his target.

When the Angel comes at him and pushes him violently against the wall, the momentum crushes Raoul's skull.

Silence is all that follows. Silence and a terrible numbness that causes him to stagger when he moves over to where his love lies in a gruesome red lake. A total absence of hope.

Her eyes are still open. Her hand is still warm. But when he rests his head on her chest, there, too, is silence. Her heart under the bloody fabric of her dress isn't beating anymore.

"Christine... is... dead..." he seems to choke on these words that leave his mouth for the first time.

Carla wipes her tears from her cheeks, then she lays her hand on his and presses it gently. He doesn't withdraw, he doesn't comment, he just beholds the light of the fire on her pale skin.

"Christine is dead..." he softly repeats. "She is dead..."


	12. Voice and Heartbeat

**My** dearest reviewers, thank you so much for all your nice words! I love you all!

**-Chapter Twelve – Voice and Heartbeat-**

**In** the middle of the night, Carla wakes up, stirred by some words that loudly echoed through her dreams: _Christine... forgive me. I will not let you go again..._

She tries to fall asleep again for some time, but it doesn't work. So she gets up and shuffles over to the library to fetch her book.

When she crosses the threshold, she sees Erik who is sitting in his armchair by the fire.

"Back again?" she asks softly.

"I wasn't at her grave yet." he answers.

Slightly irritated, Carla sits down on her stool.

"Are you feeling alright again?"

"I think so... I didn't expect that either..." He looks at Carla's folded hands for a moment. "I guess, I've finally accepted it..." his eyes show a faint smile "Look what you did to me in eleven days..."

He's healing... Carla bites her lip.

"I was just sitting around and listening. Erik."

"You bravely beared my madness."

She shrugs and gives him a wry-mouthed smile.

"Will you sing with me once more?"

Caught off guard by this question, her eyes reveal a trace of fear.

"You'd rather not, I guess..."

"No, I... I..." Carla stammers "I'll have to think this over... Will you tell me about your time before the Opera?"

"I'll have to think this over as well." he answers with an elegant tilting of his head. "And you should go back into your bed and sleep now."

"I know." Slackly she gets up. "Good night again."

"Good night."

When she is gone, Erik takes Christine's picture out of his pocket to look at it for a while.

"You knew I could not help loving her, didn't you?" he whispers.

**'Don't** you know... ' she thinks the next morning, still half asleep 'This singing with him was the most sexual moment of your entire life...' With a frown she struggles up. "Man... yes... He wanted you... all of you... like you wanted him... for a moment..." she shivers involountarily "I wish I had only one clear feeling about this..."

When she wipes her eyes, an eye-lash sticks to her hand. Carfully she picks it up.

'Superficiality. Darn!' she then wishes and sends it flying to... wherever.

After having taken a shower, she shuffles into the library.

"Could we go for a walk in the Bois?"

"Of course."

**Slowly**, the full moon creeps up over the treetops and sends it's silvery light to dance on the lake.

Carla closes her eyes for a moment, then she takes a deep breath.

"Man, this is _so_ beautiful!" she sighs softly "I could stand here forever, just watching the light playing on the water..."

"Sights like that are worth living for." Erik agrees, his voice nearly inaudible.

Carla tilts her head to look at him. The moonlight glows on his mask, frames the shape of his cloaked figure and by that gives him a majestic, utterly unreal appearance.

'If this all were just a dream...' she thinks by herself 'If this all were just one big dream, there would be no consequences...' Slowly she turns towards Erik and reaches hesitantly for his hand, but before she can touch him, he rips lose from the scenery and starts to stroll along the bank of the lake.

"Have you come to a conclusion concerning the singing?"

Carla sighs and catches up with him.

"Have _you_ come to a conclusion concerning your past?" she then retorts.

"So you want to play a little quid pro quo?"

"No, Mr. Lecter. And I'm still not sure if I want to sing with you again... Why do you want it?"

"I don't know if I wont it, either. I'm only interested in what you want."

"Now that's..." she falls silent. "What about your past?"

"Well, including today we have only four days left, so even if I wanted to burden you with every detail, I won't be able to do it. But if you have some concrete questions, I will see if I can answer them."

"I have some questions that would be... important to me, but... I guess you will not like them..."

"Try it."

Carla hesitates.

"I want to know what your mother looked like." she eventually mumbles "I want to know, how she died and if you loved someone before you loved Christine..."

Erik remains silent for a moment, then he speaks with a strangely expressionless voice: "My mother was a strong woman, but not strong enough... She survived my father's parting three months before I was born; but I was... not what you would call an easy child. I did all I could to keep her more afraid of me than I was of her... And having given birth to a... distorted monster made her an outcast, deprived of all friends. My father left her as a wealthy woman, but that didn't last forever. So... on my ninth birthday, I found her... she had hanged herself from the garderobe... I cut her off, I buried her, I left... If I had a normal face..." his voice trails off.

"Did you mourn for her?" Carla asks softly.

"Oh, I... I sang a Requiem. But I miss nothing about her... She wasn't even especially beautiful..."

"And the early love?"

"Hah." Erik sneers. "I, too, was young and stupid once. She was eighteen, two years older than me, and when she was bored of detesting me and playing around with my feelings, she saw to it that I had to flee the gypsies. Popular women and outcasts simply don't fit together."

"So you were not kept prisoner there?"

"I was at first. But I gained a considerable degree of freedom, much like Kay envisioned it. He had to make my life worth living, at least a little."

"And where did you go after that?"

"I had nowhere to go to. So I went on travelling from fair to fair, seeing the world and still using my fantasy, voice and face to make ends meet. The only time worse than that was Persia and I often thought about ending it all - a well placed knife, a fast poison... but then again... I have this certain contrariness in me and the world isn't made of hating humans alone. There are so many places loaded with beauty where one can hide, create and study... If I hadn't had this affinity to human culture I surely would have stayed in a wood, somwhere in Asia. Plants and animals are not interested in faces..."

Carla smiles and shakes her head.

"Erik goes Tarzan. But sure that would be paradise, to live in the wilderness, far away from all humans, independent of all artificial systems, no problems but the next meal and wood for a fire... with your knowledge of herbs and medicine..." she sighs. "Uhm, did you ever have a master?"

"A master mason. It was a really expensive education but all bribing wasn't good enough to keep the situation calm. I was too good and my master feared and hated me... I was kind of getting used to it by that time."

"You never had a friend?"

Erik shrugs.

"Beside you, the closest thing to a human friend that I ever had was the Daroga. He didn't leave me to the Shah's revenge - he had his visionary period again and saw me as a great artist. Had he had one of his overly righteous or depressed days I wouldn't be here now."

"Was he really that unstable?" Carla asks, unbelieving wrinkles on her forehead.

"After eleven months with me, yes..." he sounds ashamed.

"How did it come that you settled down under the Opera?"

"I was in Paris when they hit water and anonymously sent a suggestion for a solving of the problem to Garnier. And because I was fed up with travelling I decided to stay and see if he would accept it and if I could be of further use. In the course of time I sent many solutions for many problems, ideas as well as money; I interfered with all important decisions so that I finally reigned over a great part of the building process. And after having done so many vital things for it's development, it was a syllogism to me to claim the Opera my rightful property and use it as my habitat. And this I did."

"Garnier never talked to you personally?"

"I forbade him to ever search for me. I guess he kind of feared me, but was wise enough to realize a good idea when it fluttered on his desk."

Carla utters an acknowledgeing sound and for a while they just walk in silence side by side.

"Are you afraid of my face?" Erik suddenly asks.

Slightly irritated Carla looks at him.

"Do I make the impression?"

"No..."

"Then why do you ask?"

Erik shrugs.

"Perhaps I want to hear it from you."

She stops and sternly looks into his eyes.

"I am not afraid of your face, Erik. Take off your mask whenever you feel like it."

He examines her expression for a moment, as if he were considering to bare his face now, but then he seems to decide against it and walks on without saying a word.

Carla gives a wry-mouthed smile.

'Once a coward walked the Bois...'

For an instant she beholds the elegance of his movements. He steps like a dancer, light and with a strange... musicality, and yet there is something grave and powerful to him. He definitely is not the type of killer who practices martial arts to defend himself in unfortunate situations, but the one who uses only the speed of his perceiption and reaction to strike first and leathal with his one chosen weapon.

Grinning she runs a few steps to catch up with him.

"By the way, do you carry your punjab lass...?" Before she can end the sentence, a sharp, whistling sound cuts the air. She feels a soft jerk around her head, then there is another whistling and Erik moves on as if nothing happened.

"You are a poser!" she scolds him "And why did you kill my head?"

"Catching your neck would have been too dangerous. I didn't want to hurt you."

"Why, thank you." She hooks her hand to his elbow. "Did you ever have a pet?" she then blurts out "Kay says, you had a cat named Ayesha, and she and Christine were constantly having little psycho fights. Is that another good guess?"

"Well..." He is obviously surprised that she touches him without special reason; but soon he bends his arm, welcoming the slightly new dimension of their relationship. "I love animals. They judge a creature just by it's behaviour and not by it's outlooks. I always had at least one that trusted me, a bird, a squirrel, a wolf, a horse... But I never had a pet. Animals belong into the wilderness and not into a house. I would feel like taking a prisoner."

"Really? Hm, I guess, Canary would starve to death or be hit by a car if I let him out of the house."

"I wouldn't be so sure about that. Some instincts never die."

There is a strange pronounciation to this last sentence, that gives Carla an odd feeling, and suddenly she wishes, she hadn't taken his arm. Being so close to Erik, remembering the sensations that rolled through her when she sang with him, she begins to understand that loving the dark creature beside her means damnation. _Surrender to him, to his passion, his will, dissolve and die in his voice, be reborn in his heartbeat, bloom under his touch; and Angel, Demon, whatever he is, whatever he wishes to be, you will be it, too, and belong to Earth no longer. _

Struggling for breath, Carla stops.

Immediately, Erik turns towards her, deep concern in his look.

"What is wrong with you?"

But her wide eyes just stare to the ground, while she pants as if there wasn't enough air.

"Carla." he firmly grips her upper arms "Nod or shake your head: is there a physical cause for your state?"

When she shakes her head, he relaxes a bit.

"Alright, Carla. You are panicking, but that is no catastrophe. I will help you to calm down again. Just listen to my voice, child. Listen..."

And suddenly, she finds herself wrapped in sound, in a rhythm that seems to take a hold of her body, to soothe the feeling of sheer terror that has her chest in it's iron grip. Little by little, her breathing grows slower, the frequency somehow staggering downward to meet with the music, the safe ground that Erik's voice created for her.

When she finds back into reality, she is still in the park and Erik is still holding her arms.

"Carla..."

Putting up her head is a little difficult, but she manages to look into his eyes.

"Erik..." she mumbles "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to..."

"No, don't apologize. Are you alright again?"

"I guess..." supporting herself at his hand she wipes some tangeled wisps of hair from her forehead. "Man, this was scary..."

"A stress reaction, I assume. The last twelve days weren't easy for you. I'm sorry that it had such a severe effect on you."

'Gosh, don't be so sweet and caring!' she inwardly pleads him 'Be the dark possessive demon again, I know you control it by your will! Give me a reason to run! Make this the hell easy for me!'

"I... I have such fits sometimes." she lies "Like the claustrophobia, you know? I have a hand full of decent psycho days every year and this was the third for 2004. Don't blame yourself. You helped me better than any other before."

He utters no word of protest, although he obviously doesn't believe her.

"Shall we return to the Opera?"

"Yes, please."

While they slowly walk back to the gate and the carriage, Carla looks east.

"How long is it till dawn?"

"Approximately two and a half hours." Erik answers "Time enough for another walk. Hopefully a pleasent one..."


	13. Reaching Out

Ok, on it goes:)

**-Chapter Thirteen – Reaching Out -**

**"Something** really scared her today and I don't know what it was." he mumbles, sitting leaned against the wall beside Christine's grave. "I was so certain that she is as brave as you were, when she didn't leave... The fifteen days are over soon... I don't want to be forced to keep her here against her will."

'You didn't respect her will in the first place.' is Christine's wordless answer.

"I will not use this argument."

'I know. But you will keep her nontheless.'

"I love her, Christine."

'Then trust her.'

Sadly he shakes his head.

"I can't."

**"Carla,** what is wrong with you today? You seem totally distracted."

She shrinks away from his friendly concern.

"It's nothing, really, just the aftermath of the fit yesterday... I am tired. I didn't sleep all night."

Erik frowns.

"Why didn't you come to me, child? I could have helped you."

"I... I didn't want to disturb you..."

He sighs and picks the blanket up from the floor.

"Then let me comfort you now. Come."

**In** his room, he drapes the blanket over his piano.

"Lie down there... Wait, I help you up..."and before Carla knows what happens, she sits on the instrument. "Now, stay where you are, I'll fetch your bed-cover..."

Five minutes later, she lies there, wrapped up comfortably in the warm fabrics, while Erik's music flows through her body. Soft, deep tones that realx her muscles and send her mind onto a peaceful journey. All the cramped fears and doubts stop circling around her head, until she finally falls into a deep, dreamless slumber.

When he is sure that she is unconscious, Erik leaves his seat and moves to her side. Hesitantly his thin fingers reach out. But just before they touch Carla's softly blushed cheek, he withdraws again and sighs.

"You are the true Angel." he whispers into the direction of the ebony cabinet in whose upper drawer he keeps his morphine.

**When** Carla wakes again several hours later, Erik is totally absorbed by sketching. To avoid disturbing him, she doesn't move, just blinks a few times to focus on his straight back.

'Why are you so wonderful, Erik?' she asks him silently 'And why so frightful? Why can't you just be plain and simple?'

"So you're awake." Erik suddenly greets her without turning around. "Do you feel well again?" he puts his pencil aside and gets to his feet to walk over to the piano.

Carla yawns.

"Much better than before, but still not good."

"Are you falling ill?" his yellow eyes search her face with an intensity that causes her to feel slightly uncomfortable.

"No, I guess not." she mumbles, struggling into an upright position to escape Erik's gaze. "When I fall ill I stop eating, but I'd love to eat something now."

"Shall I prepare you a meal?"

"Oh yes, that would be great. Some cereals with milk and fruits. I feel like healthy food today."

When he is gone, she lets herself fall onto the blankets again.

"Two and a half days, two and a half days, two and a half days..." she repeats like a mantra "Today, tomorrow and the day after. Two and a half days, two and a half days, two and a half days..." She must hang on to reason. She mustn't panic. She and her sanity will survive this rollercoaster ride. Only two and a half days, then she will be going home, home to where she's save from everything.

**The** evening passes. With gentle force, Erik urges Carla to stay on the piano and allow him to read every wish from her eyes. For a while she lets him have his way, but when he offers to carry her to the bathroom, she finally reacts angry.

"Darn, Erik, I am no child! And I am not ill, just a little tired! I can walk alone and I will not die on the way to the toilet."

"I'm sorry Carla. I didn't mean to unnerve you."

"You're not unnerving me, Erik. It's only... I'm twenty, I left my parent's house, I'm grown up and already a tiny little bit independent - I want to be treated like that... Although I feel too feeble to jump down this thing gracefully... Would you help me?"

**When** he has heaved her up on the piano again, there is an odd, unexpected moment of silence between them.

'Reason!' Carla thinks '_I must cling to reason_!' while her toes move forward, until they brace against Erik's stomach, a little bit above from where his belly button must be. Her eyes are locked to her blue anklets, while Erik's breathing lets the pressure against her foot in- and decrease. Then his hands creep into her field of view, get a gentle hold of her foot, cause it to look tiny and vulnerable... and suddenly, Carla is terribly afraid, that he will not let go of her again; but when she withdraws, as calm as possible to avoid hurting him, he doesn't hinder her.

A little too loud and accentuated, Carla clears her throat.

"What did you do the last onehundred years?" she asks, trying hard to keep her voice from quivering.

"Mostly I was down here." He turns around and walks over to an ebony cabinet with a strange air of haste. "I talked to Christine, read to her, read to myself... I composed and did a lot of experiments concerning synthetics and as a result own several patents for highly specialized materials." he talks without looking at Carla, fumbling around in the upper drawer of the cabinet "Some of these materials are used in computers, others in plastical surgery."

"Why..." Carla hesitates "Why didn't you go to a..."

"Plastical surgeon? I will _not_ lie helplessly on a table in front of some greedy, untrustworthy human. I will _not_ be the headline of a medical newspaper. I will _not_ find my way into the yellow press. I will _not_ be a curiosity once more. I'd rather spend eternity in this body under the Opera than bear _humiliation_ once more."

His voice sounds calm, but behind this facade Carla can sense the murdrous energy, the fuel for all his immoral, inethical deeds. He would do anything, _anything,_ to protect his dignity, to defend at least his most fundamental right as a human being.

She swallows.

"When did you realize that you can't die?"

"It was the night I buried Christine. I overdosed my morphine and cut my wrists but it had no effect. The next day I stabbed myself, I tried to drown, to break my neck, to dehydrate, to starve to death... I thought I'd lose my mind together with Christine... but I didn't. I cried, I was depressed, I resigned, I cried again... But through all the pain I felt... I felt that her spirit still lives here... And now I know that I live, too, Carla. I live..."

'If there ever was a moment to say "I love you"...' Carla thinks sadly.

"Would you make me sleep again, Erik?" she asks instead "I'd like to sleep now..."

**Still** a little dreamstricken Carla buries her face in the soft, comforting fragrance of her pillow. It takes a while for her to figure out that the music she hears isn't played by her memory and that the bed in which she lies, the pillow under her head, isn't her own; but when she does, she sits up with a start and grabs the fabric of the dark curtains to find a way out. Immediately the music stops and a moment later an opening appears in the blackness.

"Good morning." Erik greets her.

"I... I need to go to the bathroom..." she blurts, shoves Erik aside and hurries out of the room.

On the corridor, she leans against the wall and takes a deep breath.

'You slept in his bed. You actually slept in his bed and liked it!'

"Now... why does that shock you so much...?" she whispers after a while. "He din't sleep there, too... did he...?"

**"Do** you feel better than yesterday?" Erik asks, when she returns into his room.

"Uhm... actually... actually I feel very good..." she realizes with a slight trace of surprise.

"I played on the piano for you all night. Perhaps that had some influence on the quality of your sleep. That's why I carried you into my bed and not into your own. I'm sorry that it starteled you when you woke up. Perhaps I shouldn't have closed the curtains..."

"No... It was just... Don't worry, Erik. And you... you played all night? You didn't rest yourself?"

"I never needed much sleep."

"Oh... But thank you. Your therapy worked really good." Her smile barely hides her insecurity and she avoids direct eye-contact with Erik, while she states: "For the sake of a bearable jetlag I would like to leave early tomorrow. That means that today is practically the last day of my sojourn and wh should use it well. Any ideas?"

"There are over two hours left for a walk in the park." he answers, his voice revealing nothing about his feelings.

"Ok, let's stroll around the Bois; but later today, it feels so odd to go out into the night when you've just had your breakfast. What could we do before the walk?"

"I could show you, how beautiful chemicals can be when you know how to mix them together."

"Oh yes, that's good!" this time her smile is nearly stable "But you'll have to explain to me how it all works."


	14. Circling the Prey

**To** all my readers and reviewers: I love you, guys!

**Thanks** to sbkar for the correction of that nasty vocabulary fault:)

**And** now, for your pleasure:

**-Chapter Fourteen - Circling the Prey-**

**The** moon has risen to it's zenith and the branches and twigs of the trees cast their black shadows in strange patterns on the paths.

Patiently, Erik walks beside Carla, who holds her arms folded in front of her chest, one hand massaging her shoulder, while she tells him about Leah's and her punk project as if one moment of silence would cost her life. He listens half-heartedly, nods in the right moments, gives a smile every now and then... but his thoughts are with Christine. She would know what to do in this awkward situation, she would know how to soothe Carla's fears, how to show her his love. But her grave is far away, and as his patience is melted by his own fear of losing Carla, he gets more and more convinced, that he should just rely on his instincts...

When his hand touches her upper arm, Carla's utter frame freezes, but she keeps on talking about her guitar riff in Leah's newest song 'White Rose Vertigo'. Gently, his fingers cross Carla's lips and cause her to fall silent, greeting the skin contact with an ambivalent shiver.

"Carla..." his eyes hold her view, while he slowly tilts his head "Carla..." hesitantly, as if he were afraid that she could scream, he withdraws his hand from her mouth and traces the outline of her chin "You have to losen your jaw and hold up your head a little higher... Now sing for me. Sing 'White Rose Vertigo' so that I learn the melody and the lyric and can teach you when you do the _da capo_."

But Carla remains tensely silent; his touch seems to have hushed even her thoughts. A frown darkens his look.

"Then sing whatever you want, Carla, but sing."

Stirred by the menace that is barely hidden behind Erik's friendly tone, her thoughts begin to race again. 'White Rose Vertigo' is Kay-Christine's song about the tale of the rose and the nightingale that Erik told her. She can not possibly sing this. Not here, not with Erik listening. No, she will choose the pain that she already knows.

But when Erik breathes his first 'turn around', Carla feels that she knew nothing about his voice, that she couldn't even imagine the amount, the intensity of desire it can lay into one simple sentence. She wants to back out of this, she wants to run, but her voice is already trying to please it's new master.

"Turn around..."

Slowly Erik creeps away from her, begins to circle her like a shark would circle it's prey, while at the same time Carla feels him closer than ever.

"Turn around..."

Her mind starts a desperate struggle to suppress the feelings that his velvet voice evokes in her, to break the spell that he cast so rapidly on her. She wants to fall silent and press her hands to her ears, but her heart shouts at her not to rebel; _do as he demands or he will hurt you, do as he demands or he will leave you_!

"Turn around..."

One last time her fears try to support her sense for the rational. Ugly and electrifying do they boil up around her indecesive treacherous heart and cause her voice to slip badly; but this is just the last breath that she takes before she dares to let herself be dragged down into the the dark waters of what promises to be Erik's love for her.

"Turn around, bright eyes..."

**When** Carla regains consciousness, she finds herself in the carriage, wrapped into Erik's arms. With one determined movement, she frees herself and stumbles onto the opposite bench, where she coweres into the farthest edge and hides her face.

Erik gives no word of protest, no sigh, not even an emanation of anger or threat, but Carla isn't interested in how and where he looks, she doesn't want to know if her flight hurt him, if he dreaded or expected it. She just wants to go home tomorrow, off this rollercoaster, forget everything and never return.

**Back** at the house, she hurries into her room without saying a word.

She remembers what happened when she sang with Erik...

He finally embraced her from behind and followed the outlines of her torso ever so slowly, gently and determined, ran his warm hands over her shoulders, her breasts, her belly, her thighs, while her fingers clawed into his jacket and his neck to hinder him from ever stopping, from ever leaving her alone with her aching body. There was no more room for fear, shame or doubt between the lovers, no more sound exept their powerful voices that stirred the air like shockwaves of raging lust and beauty.

He didn't sleep with her out there on the bank of the lake, he didn't even kiss her. But that makes no difference.

**The** next morning the whole world seems to be damped down, like someone had pressed the mute button on everything. Slowly but steadily she stuffs her clothes into her backpack that she found in the wardrobe behind her clothes. She feels numb. Eternally sad. And she doesn't want to think about anything; she already knows that there are no answers to her questions.

When a dark blur appears beside her and offers to carry her bag, she doesn't even bat an eye-lash; it's only when the cool air from the lake hits her face and the highpitched sounds of slowly rowing oars echo through the catacombs, that she finds back to something that resembles a clear consciousness.

_She's going home_! She will return into reality! The fifteen days are finally over!

When the boat eventually docks at the kay below Rue Scribe, she disembarks with an air of determination, and as silently as Erik, who remains standing in the boat, she hastens to the wall where the gate should appear.

She waits, moving from one foot to the other and trying to hush the sudden realization, that Erik will open no gate for her, no matter how long she stands here.

Her hand touches the cold stones, presses them, beats against them, claws into the rough surface, while she grows more and more desperate. Tears burn in her eyes, sobs start to shake her, she begins to scream, attacking the unfeeling stone like a madwoman until her fingernails are torn, her knuckles bleed and an unbearable pain creeps up her arms. With a last cry of despair she lets herself slide down the wall and curls up on the floor, where she remains, sobbing softly.

Then a draft hits the side of her body.

Unbelieving she lifts her head and wipes the tears from her face. There are black bars... A gate with no lock... Carfully her hands stretch out to touch the cool iron. It's real. It's actually real! And it moves slightly when she supports herself on one bar to get up. The gate is open! _He lets her go_! This time she sobs with relief.

When she bends down to grab her backpack, her look strikes Erik who is still standing in the boat, an unmoved black cloaked figure, whose yellow eyes behind the eerie white mask are cold and unfeeling once again.

Slowly, Carla pulls the bagpack onto her sholder, her eyes locked to Erik's white mask. She will leave him alone. She will leave him to an eternity of loneliness, imprisoned in the absolute darkness of the underground.

"Will you ever return?" The wind carries his whisper to her, so softly that she isn't sure if she really heard or just imagined it.

And she doesn't answer. Her lips tightly shut, she just continues to stare helplessly into his petrified, gleaming eyes until her sight blurs. With one incredible effort she finally rips lose and steps out on Rue Scribe, never turning back to see the gate disappear.


	15. Lost Mind

**Tasty **cookies for my reviewers! Baked them myself:) With chocolate. Good for sanity!

**And **I to all who didn't know: Erik doesn't belong to me but to Gaston Leroux or Susan Kay... or was it the guy who wrote the script for the silent movie? Or for the movie with Charles Dance? Or was it ALW? Or, wait, was it... Becky Meadows... mwahahahahaaaa Anywho...

But Carla is definitely mine. My own sweet little Carla who creeped out of my head without ever asking permission. Wanna borrow her, just ask me!

**But** now I'll give you what you came for! Carla's thoughts about poor, poor Erik... who artfully and with all the innocence of his desperate dark love _raped_ her by voice and hand... Hmmmm...

**-Chapter Fifteen - Lost Mind-**

**Back** home. Finally! It never felt so good to unlock a door and close it again behind her.

The twilight of dawn drips in through the windows, when Carla tiptoes into the bathroom to wash and disinfect her injured hands.

The shadow that appears on the threshold after a while, doesn't move, until Carla grows aware of it's presence and terribly starteled turns around.

"Leah! Darn! Never do this to me again!" she shouts at her friend, when she realizes that it's her and no one else.

"I could say the same, dearest." Leah retorts "Where have you been all night and with whom have you wrestled that your hands look like that? I woke up when you banged the door shut; I ran after you but you were already gone around some corner when I reached the street."

Carla swallows and turns back to the washing-basin.

"I can't tell you what happened... It's so crazy that you wouldn't believe it anyway. But it's over now. Let's just forget about it, alright?"

"_Man_." Leah groans while she returns to the bedroom "I always knew that you were different, but this absolutely beats all I ever ex..." she stops.

"Leah?" carfully drying her hands with a clean cloth, Carla leaves the bathroom. When she passes around the corner to the bedroom, she can see what hushed her friend.

Carla's bed that was still a mess when she entered the flat, is now tidied up. And in the middle of the neatly folded bed-cover, showing the never-dying expressionlessness of a doll's face, lies a white mask.

Once more all strenght leaves her body and she ungracefully lands on the floor.

"Damn!" she sobs "Damn, I thought it was over!"

"What is over, Carla..." Leah mumbles, never taking her eyes off the white polished wood "What is over? And what is that thing on your bed?"

"You know perfectly well what it is, Miss Phan!" Carla answers, unnerved fury overpowering the fear in her voice for a moment.

"No, I don't know what it is, because it can't be what I think that it is!" Leah groans.

"So? I thought you were a believer!... It _is_ what you think it is."

There is an instance of silence.

"But..." Leah eventually mumbles "How did it get here?"

"He brought it over, I guess."

"_Erik_ was in this room?" Leah's eyes grow wide "_Erik visited my bedroom_? Man.. I... always thought I would... die of happyniess or whatnot that day, but... I... I feel just... it's disturbing... and..." with a helpless sigh she sits down on the floor beside Carla.

"Don't even try to understand it." Carla recommends. "Feel blessed that it's only his mask that you have to confront."

"So you actually met him...?"

"I really don't want to explain it to anyone... Let's go have some breakfast." and with that she drags Leah to her feet, leaving the mask behind as if it were a poisonous animal.

**"I** would say we seize the early hour and go strolling around Montmartre. It surely is just beautiful this time of the day."

"And I would say you put that mask out of the bedroom and we both get some sleep. It's bloody half past five in the morning." Leah yawns.

"To me it's around ten a.m."

"Lucky you." she gets up and prepaires to leave the room "We can still go to Montmartre when it's a decent time of day to me, too."

"Leah, you can't leave me alone now, I beg you!" desperatly Carla clings to Leah's sleeve. "I'll make you a strong coffee, I'll buy you an espresso in every café you wish, I'll do everything, but please stay up and distract me!"

"Man, you're really broken down, aren't you?"

"I thought he'd never let me go, Leah, I thought he would keep me down there forever!" Carla begins to sob.

"Oh, sweetheart, don't cry, please..." Leah groans, embracing her gently. "I won't leave you alone. Wanna go to Montmartre? Fine, I come with you."

"But I won't tell you anything, Leah."

And this Carla does. No word passes her lips, while she tries hard to listen to Leah's goodwilled performance of non-stop babbling.

It's only when they sit down in the grass in the Jardins de Luxembourg, that Leah falls silent for a moment.

"Think out loud, Carla, or I will go crazy, too." she finally states. "What the hell happened!"

Carla sighs and picks up a fallen leaf.

"Remember the guided tour?"

"It was the day before yesterday, Carla. Of course I remember."

"From my perspective it's over two weeks ago. Erik has a fast forward time ellipsoid under the Opera."

"Well..." Leah looks at her with a really stupid expression "I will just take that as given and ask no more..."

"On that tour he saw me. And as he liked how I look and behave..."

"Wait..." Leah interrupts her "You mean he actually stalked the tour? He... he was _there_?"

"Yes. And he thought you were preoccupied and talkative."

"Why... if you ever see him again, kick him for me..."

"I fell behind because I lost my neckerchief." Carla continues "Erik turned off the lights, I fell into the lake, he dragged me out. He let me go again when I begged him to do so, but he gave me that darn letter and that's why I returned to the Opera. I had to see if there is a gate in Rue Scribe. And, well, there sometimes is a gate."

"So your questions that evening were earnest... And what did you do down there all the time?"

"We talked. About books, him, Christine..."

Leah puts her hands on her hips.

"So you know the true story! Dear, you know what that means..."

"I don't think that he wants anyone else to know it."

Leah pulls a disappointed face.

"Pretty pwease!"

"No... Really, Leah..."

"Nah. Ok. But then tell me what the mask on your bed means."

"It's my key to the gate. He wants me to return. He invites me... And I don't know... I... Perhaps I... Gosh, I wish someone would shoot me in the back right now!"

"Oh, come on, why is it such a problem to figure out if you want to go back?"

Carla shortly looks at her face.

"Surely you remember the confusion his mask produced in you? Now think two steps farther..." she sighs and hides her face in her hands "Man, he's being sad down there now. He surely believes I'm never coming back. And I'm so scared, Leah! What if he comes to kidnap me again? What if he takes me although I don't want it?"

Leah shrugs, utter insecurity in her expression.

"We could call the police to guard the house. But then again, no one can stop Erik..."

"What if I want him to come for me?" Carla whispers "What if I want him to abduct me by force...?"

"Well, then I should slap you." Leah suggests ironically to distract herself from the uncomfortable feeling that the intensity of Carla's fear evokes in her "Who will pay your half of the rent when you're lost somewhere under the Opera?"

"Erik would. He would do anything for me... We sang together..."

Leah leans forward to look at Carla, an exited smile broadening her face as the phan in her finally starts to jump around.

"Oh gosh, you have to tell me about that! Is his voice really so full of beauty and power and stuff?"

"It's terribly beautiful and it... the last time it was... He kind of... deflowered me..."

"_What_!" Leah's eyebrows shoot up with disbelief "You... you had _sex_ with Erik?"

Carla stares at the grass between her feet.

"No, it... I guess it was more than that."

"More than sex! Would you please explain that to me?"

"We... we... sang and..." Carla stammers on the verge of tears "I don't know, I... I was so terribly afraid, but then I gave in to his voice and it... it was like I fell and fell and his voice and his hands where everywhere, and these feelings... these... It was... so_ much_... and I wanted it to go on, just go on, I thought I'd die if it'd ever end, but... it ended and I was gone and then I was back and it was so horrible and I... He loves me, Leah..."

Dumbstruck, Leah stares at her.

"He _loves_ you?"

Carla nods and gropes for a handkerchief.

"He loves me and I was so afraid that he would not let me go! I thought he would keep me forever and I started to beat against the wall and... And now he suffers because I'm gone. And I feel so bad! I... it could be that I love him, too, Leah... It could be that I love him, and I'm sure that all I want is to run away and hide somewhere he'll never find me, but he's so sad... surely he's sad..."

"Man, you really don't know what you feel."

"So you wanna switch places with me?" Carla growls, suddenly very angry "You think I have all you ever wanted, don't you? I was with Erik, he wanted me, I wanted him; but if you knew what this all means, you wouldn't wish for it anymore!"

"Carla, I'm sorry, I didn't want to offend you." Leah sighs. "This is all just crazy..."

"And surreal." Carla adds, supporting herself on the statue beside her "Absolutely surreal... I feel like I lost my mind... He's wonderful, but he scared the hell out of me." she blinks to get rid of the tears that blur her sight "Could we just stop talking about it?"

Leah sadly looks at her.

"I wish I could help you, hon. I really wish I could help you."

"My hands hurt." Carla suddenly whimpers.

"That I can imagine. Poor bunny." Leah strikes her shoulder "Would some chocolate make it all better?"

"Oh, yes." Carla groans "Erik didn't have any chocolate, can you imagine that, too?"

"No chocolate? No wonder that he's so strange. Chocolate stabilizes the general sanity."

"Buy me chocolate with nuts. I want chocolate with nuts."

**The** day creeps away, feeling uncomfortable all around.

Inspite of Carla's request, Leah tries to bring up the Erik-topic again a few times because she feels that it would be wrong to leave her alone with the decision, but Carla hushes her every time. So they go on strolling around Paris - as far away from the Opera as possible - mostly in utter silence.

In the evening they cower onto the couch before the telly and zap through stupid movies and bad commercials until Leah falls asleep, exhausted from all the walking and the early beginning of her day. Carla goes on zapping, desperate to quiet the thoughts that want to torment her. It doesn't take long until she, too, falls asleep.


	16. Turn Around

**Sorry** it took me so long to update, but my semester is about to start and I had to do a lot of work, so...

**Anywho:** Thanks to my reviewers! I love you, guys (though I wonder where my two faithful R'n'R's Galasriniel and TheSiriusSparrow have gone...O.O)

**-Chapter Sixteen - Turn around-**

**When** she wakes again, the sun has just begun to rise over Paris.

Groaning softly, she stretches her back and walks over to the window to look out into the awakening world. After a while she turns and lets her eyes wander around the room until they come to rest on Leah who is still sleeping tightly. She thinks about the life that she envisioned for herself: The future of an ambitioned archaeologist, the future of a singer and guitarist in a small but good punk project named 'Chablis', the future of the best friend of an odd, lovely woman that for many years meant more to her than anything else...

It all seems so beautiful, so promising and right in the pale light of morning and she loves it, loves it so much that it hurts.

Yet all her wishes and dreams, all the fears that still haunt her to the point of nausea... they're just meaningless when Erik is sad because she isn't with him.

Her prophecy came true... She died in his voice and was reborn, belonging to Earth no longer.

Silently she fetches a pencil and a piece of paper and writes a letter for Leah.

**She** walks fast, her boots banging the pavement with some accentuation. She can't wait to see him again, to tell him, that she loves him, that she will never leave him again, even if it means to spend the rest of her life in the catacombs under his Opera. But then she stops and her eyes grow wide.

What if losing her cost him his last bit of sanity? What if he left Paris? What if he finally found a way to end his life?

With a curse she starts to run.

**No** one waits for her in the darkness behind the gate, but her flashlight shows her a boat with a line attached, that seems to hover above the water.

Hastily Carla enters the boat, that starts to move as soon as she sits safely in the bow.

"Faster... Go faster..." she mumbles impatiently. "Erik needs me. You have to go faster, turn into a speed boat, darn!" At least all the walls and portcullis are open for the sake of the line so that she doesn't have to figure out all the mechanisms.

When she finally reaches Erik's front door, she takes a deep breath. This will be her home, too. And perhaps she will share it with more of a madman than she could ever imagine...

Hastily she touches the mechanism and enters the main corridor.

"Erik?" she clears her throat "Erik, are you there?" She looks into the kitchen, the dining room, the library, her room, his room... And there he is, sitting motionlessly at the piano.

"Erik... I'm back..." Carla whispers amid her tears.

"Carla..." his voice sounds hoarse as if he had been crying. With a start he gets up to his feet and turns his back on her to walk over to his chaiselongue. "So you actually returned to end my incertainity? Well, that tells me that you're either very brave or very stupid. However, I hope you will not start to attack the walls again, it will be useless this time, for..."

"I love you, Erik."

At she sound of her whispered words he stops. Unbelievingly he turns around and stares at her.

"I love you." Carla softly repeats. "I..." she sniffles "I will never leave you again, I promise."

An instance passes in which he frowns as if he had a hard time figuring out the meaning of some cryptic noises. But then it's only one floating movement that brings him to her, one endlessly gentle gesture that encloses her warm body in his arms.

With a deep sigh she leans her face to his neck and opens up to the warm feeling that begins to spread out from the center of her being. This is where she belongs now. This is where she wants to rest forever. Buried in Erik's arms, melting, merging, becoming one with him.

When she lifts up her head again and gropes for the ribbons that hold his mask, he takes her up and turns around so that he stands protectingly between her and the door.

"No one will shoot me, Erik." she whispers, cradling his teardrenched cheek in her hand "I'm here to stay." Then her lips find his and the world ceases to exist, dissolves in the endless ocean of fulfillment.

Suddenly there is some kind of bang and Erik stumbles backwards, his face twisted to a grimace of pain, his hand clawing into his shoulder.

Bewildered, Carla looks to to the door, but there is no one.

"What happened, Erik! What..." She stops when a strange sensation grips her, as if a cold cloud would permeate her body. Her mind fills up with alien thoughts, feelings, smells, sights, as if she would breathe in Christine's memories and dreams, her entire being. For it is Christine's spirit that passes through her and for the one second that it's passage lasts, shares with her all it knows: When she was shot, Christine's shocked spirit bound itself to the first available object. This object was Erik's body, who was still open with the love for her. Unfortunately the moment she bound herself to him, was the moment, Raoul's bullet had passed half way through his shoulder, and as binding objects are resistent to major changes - exept those produced by the bound spirit - the bullet stopped; as another consequence, Erik ceased to age and gained the powers that are more or less typical for obesessed humans.

Christine stayed with Erik, partly because she wanted to, partly because he was closed again and she couldn't detach. She didn't fully understand then what had happened, but when Erik tried to kill himself it scared her so that she found a way to wander free. And as it's generally not the best of all possible feelings to share a body with a depressed and mourning person, even if you love him, she stayed out, taking refuge to him only while he slept.

When Raoul's skeleton was found during the construction works under the Opera, the fear of losing her remains showed her a way to communicate with Erik and call him to her rescue. Finally she was able to kind of care for him and no longer condemned to helplessly watch his sadness.

The decades passed and little by little, Erik began to heal. There still were bad days when depression raged in him, but all in all he made some progress. And eventually the day came, when he was ready to feel for someone else than her again.

For some weeks Christine searched the Opera for the one woman that was worthy of Erik's love. She found Carla and sent Erik to get her.

The loving kiss that they shared opened up Erik's body again and Christine could detach and can now, finally, return to everything and nothingness...

Slowly, Carla breathes out. The feelings that Christine's spirit showed her subside, the memories fade, leaving nothing but faint traces and the certainity that there was a moment of knowledge and understanding.

"She's gone..." Erik whispers, playing with the bloody bullet in his hand. "Now she's really gone..."

Gently, Carla strikes his arm.

"I am still here with you, Erik. And I will not go away."

"I know. " he answers, giving her a half sad, half happy smile "I love you."

"Gosh, it's so good to hear that from you!" Carla sighs and places a kiss on his cheek "And now I must dress your injury, Erik. Do you have any bandages here?"

"That is not necessary. Christine healed it before she went to tell you what happened." he explains, putting the bullet into the pocket of his trousers and wiping the blood off his hand with a handcerchief.

" Then..." Carla lays her hand to his cheek, and when he looks up, she catches his lips with hers and drags him down once more into a kiss, so full of longing, that his heart begins to race and his body starts to ache with the predominant need of being as close to her as possible. Gently he lifts her up to carry her over to the bed where they will shut out the world with black curtains and be only the two of them, naked, helpless, loving.


	17. Epilogue Love in the Dark

**-Epilogue - Love in the Dark-**

_**Dearest** Leah,_

_just a short letter from Scotland; this 'honeymoon' contains more trips than a vacation with you. _

_The weather is great and the landscape, too. You would be astonished how much the moon shows one. But it's all even more beautiful in the light of day;yes, I could convince him that I have the right to go out whenever I want without asking his damn permission. And as Erik still refuses to leave the house by day (it's freaky, he kind of comes to life only after dusk - before it, when there's still light outside the curtains, he seems all cramped and unconcentrated), I have an easy and diplomatical excuse when I need some time for myself: 'I need sunlight, hon. Be back in an hour.' - though I still need a lot of training in ignoring my bad conscience when I leave him alone... And the longer I live with him, the more does my 'day-night-rhythm' adjust to his._

_We got the cottage I told you about; it's much more cozy than the catacombs, yet I feel a little homesick. It's strange, but somehow it makes me nervous that we're so far from Christine's grave - shouldn't this be Erik's job?_

_My singing still makes good progress; it's unbelievable what quality he can tickle out of my throat. Between our trips and voice lessons, Erik and I spend much time reading and discussing the tons of archaeology textbooks that he purchased for me. I already learned very much. _

_When I think about all this, I have to say: sure you're right with what you said about him and our relationship. It's not appropriate for a twenty-year-old - I'm kind of a hermit, I stalk the night, I live with a man who's eight times my age, quite possessive and sometimes really scary, but... I love him, Leah, and he loves me - perhaps it's as simple as that._

_A thousand hugs,_

_Carla_

**I** m so glad that you, my dearest readers and reviewers, enjoyed my little phic! Thanks for all the encouraging comments:)

And now, for all who don't know it by heart the lyrics of the beautiful, passionate song to which Erik seduced his beloved (I hope the lyrics are not copyrighted in a way that would forbid to post them here...) :

_**Total Eclipse of the Heart **(by Jim Steinman)_

_**Turn** around..._

Every now and then I get a little bit lonely and you're never coming 'round

_Turn around..._

Every now and then I get a little bit tired of list'ning to the sound of my tears

_Turn around..._

Every now and then I get a little bit nervous that the best of all the years have gone by

_Turn around..._

Every now and then I get a little bit terrified and then I see the look in your eyes

_Turn around, bright eyes..._

Every now and the I fall apart

_Turn around, bright eyes..._

Every now and the I fall apart

**And** I need you now tonight and I need you more than ever

And if you only hold me tight we'll be holding on forever

And we'll only be making it right 'cause we'll never be wrong

Together we can take it to the end of the line

Your love is like a shadow on me all of the time

I don't know what to do and I'm always in the dark

We're living in a powder keg and giving off sparks

I really need you tonight, forever's gonna start tonight

forever's gonna start tonight.

**Once** upon a time I was falling in love but now I'm only falling apart

There's nothing I can do, a total eclipse of the heart

Once upon a time there was light in my life but now there's only love in the dark

Nothing I can say, a total eclipse of the heart

_**Turn** around, bright eyes..._

Every now and then I fall apart

_Turn around, bright eyes..._

Every now and then I fall apart

**And** I need you now tonight...(see before)

**Once** upon a time I was...(see before)

**A** total eclipse of the heart...

_Turn around, bright eyes..._

_Turn around..._


End file.
